On Distant Shores
by ruth baulding
Summary: In the aftermath of a crippling injury, Obi Wan, Qui Gon, and the Duchess discover new allies, restore balance to an exotic world, and incur the wrath of a fanatical rogue Jedi. Sequel to Beyond the Last Illusion.
1. Chapter 1

**On Distant Shores (I)**

_Care not what dangers may await you at your destination. Far more deadly are those you bring thereto. –Jedi proverb_

Jedi Master Qui Gon Jinn eased the rattling, ill-maintained Pelioni security shuttle out of hyperspace, raising a critical eyebrow as the vessel gave a hiccupping jolt and flung him hard against the safety harness. A blue planet – a shimmering, swirled marble of glass, it appeared at this distance – loomed before them, its cheerful young sun shining gold and bright at the far left of the forward viewport.

Merrid Altus. He knew next to nothing about the system, and at the moment he cared only about a single one of its inhabitants, an individual whom he knew only by reputation and hearsay. It was the thinnest of hopes, the slimmest of chances. Yet he had no choice but to gamble everything upon it. He craned his head over his shoulder as a young woman entered the cockpit. Striding softly to the co-pilot's seat and leaning over its backrest, she also peered with mingled curiosity and anxiety at the pretty blue globe with its blurred halo of atmosphere and its thin coronet of asteroid debris.

"He's asleep again," she said, abruptly.

"I know," Qui Gon answered. "This is the system. We'll drop in closer and orbit until I can locate Yervei Adah."

"Adah," the young woman repeated. She had an elegant profile, and her silver-gold hair was pulled back in a simple knot. Her expensive garments were frayed, and dirty, and spattered with lurid crimson stains, yet she bore herself with all the grace of the hereditary rank of Duchess to which she had been born. "That is the person you described to me earlier. Will he be able to help?"

"Let us hope so," the Jedi master answered grimly. He eyed the fuel gauge and eased up on the thrusters. He had to allow for the possibility that they might not be able to refuel onworld; he had little desire to be stranded on this tiny, exotic planet.

The young noblewoman nodded, her eyes full of unstated misgiving. She slipped into the co-pilot's chair and her long fingers tapped against the nav computer's data display. "The asteroid belt is full of metallic substances. How peculiar. Is it a junkyard, do you suppose?"

Qui Gon frowned. "Unlikely. To the best of my knowledge, the culture here is not technologically advanced. And there are no trade routes or commuter lines through this part of the sector." He spared a glance at the active scanners.. It was true: the asteroid belt contained many objects that looked suspiciously like spacecraft flotsam – the sort of thing left in a planet's orbit after a battle, or a pirate raid. There were thousands of small, rectangular forms floating amid the wreckage, like so many children's toy blocks. But he was far too preoccupied to give the matter any more thought.

They slipped into the planet's gravity well toward the northern magnetic pole, avoiding the asteroid field and its maze of rocks and junk. The ice cap in the arctic regions was immense, extending in jagged lines over a third of the visible hemisphere. To its south, in every direction, stretched the endless deep blue of Merrid Altus' single unbroken ocean.

"There is no land!" the Duchess gasped, staring at the spectacular view from high orbit. "Not a single continent."

"There are small island archipelagos in the equatorial region," Qui Gon reassured her, dropping through the upper atmosphere in a single, controlled glide. "I will be able to sense Master Adah's presence; the Force resonates here."

She looked at him with a tiny wry smile, one which meant _if you say so_, then directed her gaze back to the rear compartment, a thin line of concern appearing between her delicate brows. "I should check…" She trailed off, and hastily returned to the back of the ship – little more than a stripped-down cargo hold fitted for transporting criminals.

Qui Gon let her go. There was nothing she could do. But, like him. she had to try.

* * *

><p><em>The Jedi are our hereditary enemies, my lady. To be entangled with them – I think it unwise. An extremely complicated position. –Pre Vizla, Governor of Concordia, to Satine Kryze<em>

The air on the tiny crescent-shaped island smelled sweet – like rainfall and rich, dark soil. Birds chattered and unnamed animals screeched and called in the lush jungle rising up the steep slopes of the central landmass. Here, on a white beach tumbling to a placid lagoon, the shuttle sat on its landing prongs, ramp lowered to admit its passengers onto the shores of the miniature paradise.

"He's up the mountain a short distance," Master Jinn murmured, shading his eyes with one hand as he scanned the tiers of drooping trees which fringed the stony promontory above. A small flock of brightly colored birds winged its way past. Not a cloud marred the deep cerulean sky overhead. "I'll be in contact. Stay here."

As if she would go anywhere else. Satine Kryze nodded, and watched the Jedi master head up the slope at his long, easy gait, his light colored tunic swiftly disappearing from sight beneath the shade of the tropical growth. She turned to the ocean, its tantalizing cool waves breaking on the shores and lapping back again as gently as a mother stroking her babe. On the near horizon, where the water seemed to change color, she spotted a dark silhouette – a boat? The distance was too great to be sure…and she had other worries.

Leaving the tranquil vista to its unsullied perfection, she returned to the interior of the ship and its sole remaining passenger. He lay half-curled upon the deck, wrapped in three self-heating synth-fiber blankets.

"Master Jinn has gone to find help," she told him gently, kneeling down on the deck's scuffed dura-mat. She could not be certain he was even awake. Her hand brushed against his cheek, found the narrow Padawan's braid lying curled against his neck, let the smooth plait slip through her fingers, every twist of its length a reminder of the years and years he had spent single-mindedly training for a life few in the galaxy could imagine. A life which precluded many things, many joys, many comforts, but certainly offered no sanctuary from danger or suffering.

"Don't give up," she urged, fiercely. "If you die, I shall never speak to you again."

His eyelids flickered, and the faintest of smiles tugged at one corner of his mouth. "…Don't tempt me," he weakly muttered.

Satine smiled at the jest – but fickle emotion betrayed her, transforming the smile to bitter tears. She dashed them away with one hand and pulled the blankets tighter about his shoulders. He flinched at the slight movement, letting out a long, controlled breath, edged with pain. Two B'Omarr nerve probes were buried deep against his spine, their trailing microfilaments entangled about cord and vertebrae alike. The med droid back on Pelion – the vile thing – had said it would be impossible to remove them without doing further damage. It felt no remorse at having implanted the wicked devices in the first place, or at having coolly observed while they slowly chewed their way upward to the nerve plexus between the shoulder blades. It had referred to the excruciating torture as a "procedure."

Satine felt her eyes burn again, this time with outrage. Violence. Violence was the true enemy. All those who were seduced to use it – for whatever cause – were delusional fools, slaves to a cruel, consuming master. "Please, Obi," she begged. "You must keep fighting. Help is coming. I know it."

* * *

><p><em>Finding the right man for a job is easy. The hard part is convincing him to take it. – Senator Palpatine, of Naboo, in a public press conference.<em>

Qui Gon met Master Yervei Adah halway up the slope. Or halfway down, depending on your point of view. The ancient Jedi wore a simple brown robe reaching to his feet and a peculiar flattened cone of a hat – a crude device woven of dried plant fronds. His silver beard was tucked into his belt for safekeeping, alongside a satchel bulging with the hard shapes of a dozen different objects. His sandaled feet practically flew down the hillside, threading their way among stones and roots with the familiarity of one who knows the land as well as his own thoughts.

"What brings intruders to my refuge?" he called when the tall Jedi was in hailing distance.

"Master Adah?' Qui Gon answered, halting beneath the shade of a naberri plant.

"Yes, yes," the elder replied, huffing up to his visitor and raking him up and down with sharp black eyes. His skin was tanned to a rich hue of golden brown and deep creases surrounded his eyes and mouth. "And who might you be? An emissary from the Council, sent to harass an old man is his retirement?"

"I am Qui Gon Jinn," the tall man offered, "I come only to ask your help. My Padawan is in desperate need of assistance. You are famed as a healer."

"I'm famed as more than that, I daresay," Adah snorted. "You went to great deal of trouble to find me. There are plenty of others who might help you, Qui Gon Jinn."

Qui Gon's eyes flashed with impatience. "His life is in peril. There is no other Force-healer within fifty parsecs. Will you help us?"

Adah sighed. "You should not have come here," he muttered. "But since you have, I will not turn you away." He took a few paces downhill. "Lead the way. What is wrong with this Padawan of yours that you should be so rash and rebellious about his destiny?"

Qui Gon descended behind the old man, who trotted along with the agility of a curly-horned mountain gorsk. "He has B'Omarr nerve probes deep in his spine. They have been there some time."

"And he's still alive?" Adah barked.

"Yes…barely."

"B'Omarr technique, eh," the ancient Jedi muttered as they reach the foot of the slope and trotted across the shaded green undergrowth near the beach. "What have you been doing, you fool? Can't you people ever leave well enough alone? Didn't you teach the boy not to go sticking his hand in an open gundark's mouth, hm? This is what comes of your crusading and interference, you know."

"I would be most grateful for your help," Qui Gon repeated, stiffly.

"Yes, yes, you said that already."Adah dismissed him with a short, exasperated wave, and clambered up the boarding ramp without waiting for an invitation. "What have we here?" his voice echoed down from within the bare hull.

Qui Gon ducked inside a moment later, waving Satine out of the way. The haughty young Duchess raised her eyebrows at the bedraggled spectacle of the ancient Jedi, but she silently obeyed Qui Gons' injunction, rising form her self-appointed station at Obi Wan's head to stand beside the tall Jedi master in the open hatchway.

Adah pressed two long gnarled hands against the Padawan's face. "Ah. Hm." He rocked back and forth on his heels for a moment, and then deftly stripped off the thermal blankets, peering closely at the young Jedi's back. Livid bruises spread in darkening ripples from the base of his spine to its summit, erupting into an angry knot of red and purple between his shoulder blades. Satine turned her face away, stricken.

"He will die," Adah stated, flatly.

"No," the Duchess breathed.

"He has not yet," Qui Gon frowned. "The future is not ours to know. What can you do?"

Adah favored him with a sour look. "I can help him die even more painfully and slowly than he is already," he snapped. "Is that what you wish? This is what comes of your brazen meddling with the ways of the universe. You cannot undo the inevitable by throwing your will against it."

"I know this," the other Jedi replied, deliberately calm. "Nor do I presume to pass judgment on another's fate. Such is a path of presumption."

The old man studied him with narrowed eyes. "You should not have come here," he said again. "I can do nothing for your Padawan. He chose this fate when he took his learner's oath. He chose this when he built his first lightsaber. He chose this when he first used the Force for anything besides knowledge, its only right use. Do not compound your foolishness with defiance."

"You will do nothing?" Qui Gon exclaimed, self-restraint slipping away.

Adah's face hardened. "You are old not to have learned acceptance," he scowled.

But before the Jedi master could make an angry retort, Satine had thrown herself onto her knees before Adah. "I beg you," she said, voice trembling. "I implore you – for the sake of one who is still living. Are you not sworn to compassion? Will you not have compassion for me?" She held out one hand in the Mandalorian gesture of supplication.

Adah's eyes widened in disbelief. He looked from the kneeling Duchess to Qui Gon's stern face and back again. Then he sighed – a wordless curse of annoyance and misgiving. "Carry him, then," he spat out. "My home is at the top of the ridge. I shall cooperate with your folly. But you are duly warned: only more suffering will come of this." Having thus pronounced judgment, he tramped down the ramp and led the way back into the thickly forested heights.


	2. Chapter 2

**On Distant Shores (II)**

_Desperation drives the weak to folly, and the strong to victory. – Mandalorian aphorism_

Yervei Adah's home was a simple hut constructed on a raised foundation of wooden planks. The walls were fashioned of a flexible fibrous material, translucent in the light filtering through the trees at the hill's summit. A single movable panel divided the interior space into two halves: on one side was set a thin mattress, while on the other there was a low table covered in plant specimens, and a single meditation pad. A few chests and cabinets lined the furthest wall. Besides these, a fire pit sunk in the center of the smooth floor was the only furnishing.

"Leave your shoes at the door," Adah commanded, entering ahead of the others. "Here. Lay him on the _hami._ That is what the locals call their sleeping mats," he explained.

"Then there are people here besides you?" Satine asked, following Qui Gon into the small dwelling.

"A Nautolan community," Adah supplied. "It is well that you landed on this side of the island. Your presence might have disturbed them. They are not a star-faring people." He helped Qui Gon lower his Padawan onto the hard bed.

"Glee Anselm is a major center of trade," Satine pointed out, confused.

"This is not Glee Anselm," came the acerbic reply. "You. Qui Gon Jinn. This man is your apprentice. You take full responsibility for what occurs because of my efforts, for I am only doing this to appease you."

"I accept responsibility," the tall Jedi replied gravely. "Do what you are able."

Adah crouched beside the wounded Padawan for a long while, eyes closed. Qui Gon knelt nearby, solemnly watching, while Satine sat a short distance apart, her eyes resting expectantly on the small group of silent Jedi.

Adah placed his hands on the young Jedi's back again, fingers splayed. His face grew taut with concentration; and then he sighed heavily. "If I pull the probes forward or backward, it will kill him. And there is no way to untangle the microfilaments. They have bonded to the tissue. There is only one thing possible. And I am certain that will kill him, also."

"What is this last possibility?" Qui Gon asked, impatiently.

The ancient Jedi gave him a withering look."I _could_ break both filaments and probes into fine dust," he stated. "You understand. This is a Force-helaing technique called _chlore –rui: the __blood is a river._ The principle is simple enough. Harmful substances can be reduced to a sub-cellular level. The body then launches at attack, disposing of them as though they were toxins or micro-organisms, by way of an acute fever. But in one already so damaged – it would be foolish."

"Then folly is our only choice. Will you do this?"

Adah shook his head, patently displeased. "Very well," he grumbled. "But both of you – leave. Your presence is disturbing. I must concentrate without your ill-disciplined emotions clouding the Force."

Satine drew herself up, a sharp remonstration forming on her lips, but Qui Gon held out a warning hand and drew her away, out the door and back into the shade of the giant yabanna stalks and aoli trees. Once a stone's throw away from Adah's dwelling, the Jedi master drew in a deep lungful of cool, moist air. Beside him, the Duchess gazed unseeing at the ragged skyline, the rich tropical growth. Her anxiety twisted palpably through the Force.

"No matter the outcome, my lady, I will continue to act in your best interest," Qui Gon promised her. "This in no way changes that mandate."

Her clear blue-grey eyes slid sideways to regard him with disdain. "You Jedi are heartless," she whispered, and strode away, back down the narrow beaten path which marked the winding trail from Adah's home to the shoreline.

Sensing no danger in the area, Qui Gon let her go. He sighed and hooked two thumbs through his belt, considering. Another problem - one which they could not evade, like the bounty hunters that hounded their steps. This problem they carried with them, constantly, and it grew deeper roots by the day. When the time came….but no. That was the future. This was the present moment. Shifting restlessly, he brushed aside the problem and set off into the forest himself, deliberately choosing a path in the opposite direction from that which the distraught Duchess had taken, one which descended the far side of the ridge.

He had climbed down no further than halfway, unable to see what might lie at the foot of the steep hill, when he was nearly barreled down by another figure, running crosswise to the thin downward trail, a supple bow in one hand and a quiver of long, deadly arrows on his back. The stranger's dozen or so headtails spread out behind him like the plumage of a splendid bird, and his globular opalescent eyes widened in comical surprise as he twisted in midair to avoid trampling Qui Gon.

"_Te gorri!_" he exclaimed, in a rich musical voice, mouth quirking into an astonished smile as he skidded to a halt and stared at the stranger. "_Pelah?_" He extended one hand, palm up, then hesitated. "Ah…greetings," he amended, his Basic accented with a deep, lilting tone. "You are…human, yes?"

Qui Gon found himself smiling in return. "And you are Nautolan," he observed.

The Nautolan grinned, displaying dazzling, perfect teeth. He reminded Qui Gon strongly of the Jedi knight Kit Fisto, a character famed for his zesty wit, boundless daring, and appetite for the unknown. "No, no. I am Po Tikkoro. Your name?"

"Qui Gon Jinn," he replied, liking Po Tikkoro immediately. He sensed the quick intelligent mind of the being standing so casually and confidently before him. He felt the spark of a kindred spirit. "I am a visitor here. Do you dwell on this island?"

Po Tikkoro's vibrant smile widened yet further. "Yes, friend. To live in the ocean – for fish that is. Ha ha ha ha!" Hhis laugh was rich, infectious, an invitation to join in the joke. "You live where, though? Another island?"

"So to speak," the Jedi answered. "If you count the stars as islands."

The Nautolan's smile faded – not to displeasure, but to awe and wonder. "You live in the stars? But Ke Adah says there are no gods." He tilted his head to the side, sending the headtails sliding over one muscular shoulder. "Did you tell _him_ where you live?" Again, that sly, jesting undercurrent.

Qui Gon made him a short bow. "I am only a man, like yourself. And Ke Adah is not much one for conversation."

Po Tikkoro broke into another delighted cascade of laughter, and slapped Qui Gon heartily on the shoulder. "You speak truth like a brat-child, Ke Gon Jinn. Come. The others – I will share you to them."

Others? _A small Nautolan community dwells here…they would find your presence disturbing._ So said Adah. Yet Po Tikkoro here did not seem to find him disturbing in the least. Fascinating, perhaps; but that was something different. "I can come for a short while," he agreed. "I must return soon; my friend is very ill."

Po Tikkorro's mercurial smile faded again. His opaque eyes softened with concern. "Then we shall send him a _val-timeon._ Come. Come!" He sprang away again, this time down the narrow trail Qui Gon had been following, waving his green arm in a gesture of invitation. The Jedi hesitated but half a second before jogging down the path in his wake.

* * *

><p><em>It is nothing but unreasonable and unjust prejudice which makes people afraid of things that are not warm-blooded like themselves. –spokesman for the Nemoidian Trade Federation, on inter-species relations.<em>

Satine Kryze reached the bottom of the long, wending footpath long before her temper had cooled. It was perhaps imprudent to be so cross with Qui Gon Jinn, when he was her assigned protector, and might very well be her sole companion for the duration of her exile hereon. Yet his….detachment was repugnant to her. It was repugnant because she knew it to be false. She knew his stoic exterior to be a mask of utter hypocrisy. For she had spent many months now with the two Jedi, and she had seen and heard much. She had been witness to their private lives, at least more so than almost any citizen of the galaxy might claim. She had seen anger and worry and pain in Jinn's eyes, all the way from Pelion to these distant shores. She had seen the way he tended to the injured Padawan, seen him smooth a furrowed brow, grasp at a hand clenched tight in pain, heard the soothing words spoken in answer to groaning apologies. She recognized parental love when she saw it. Yet to none of these things would the Jedi admit. It was against their damnable Code, she guessed. Instead, they must torment themselves with denial and silence and outright self-punishment.

She could stomach the act of detachment. It was the denial of any kind of feeling or passion beneath it that so infuriated her. Why say _I will do what I must, because there is no emotion in the Force,_ when one could instead more truly say _I will do what I must, even though my heart break?_ What was so very, very hard difficult about that? Was it too great a demand on their abominable pride?

She stopped at the edge of the white sands. The security shuttle sat a short distance away, the tide now lapping against the bottom of its hull. Glad to be distracted from her brooding thoughts by a pressing practical concern, she removed her boots and rolled her trousers past the knees, tucking the frayed hem of her long overblouse into her belt. The ignition cylinder was in her pocket, thankfully. She could simply move the craft up the beach as far as possible, perhaps set the security shields at low power.

Padding across the damp sand and wading through an ice-cold breaker, she reached the stern of the ship and activated the ramp, lowering it halfway. And then she saw them.

A horde of flat, shining bodies, topped with waving eyestalks. Huge serrated claws hungrily waved in the air, and hard double jointed legs splayed beneath them, scuttling and splashing in the foam of the oncoming waves. Overwrought nerves flashing an image of the venomites on Pelion before her astonished eyes, Satine gasped. She clambered in a childish panic over the open ramp and shut it behind her, cold adrenaline coursing in her veins. She really must get hold of herself. What would Obi Wan say if he could see…?

No. Do not think of that. Do not think of him. What did she care what he thought? Inside the relative safety of the shuttle, she could hear the creatures scraping and clawing at the hull. Their claws pinged against the tritanuim shell, and made a hideous screeching music as they were dragged along the metal curves of the ship's underside. She suffered another moment of irrational dread, now recalling the horrific spider-like B'Omarr monks in their attic….seeming to hear them scraping and hammering at the ship, battering their way in…

Foolish! She chastised herself. She slammed the cylinder into place and brought the major systems online. A moment later, the shuttle lifted off the sand with a soft sucking noise and floated on repulsors, unwieldy beneath her inexpert piloting. It hovered slowly all the way to the top of the beach, one or two determined crustaceans still clinging to its landing gear like fishermen trying to land a whaladon. She could feel their bodies crunch as the ship set down again on dry land, and she shuddered. A glance through the viewport revealed their compatriots now surging up the warm sand in eager pursuit, and she wasted no time in exiting the way she had come, dashing back up the thin forest path as the things poured over the ship again, scratching and battering at its shining exterior.

Breathless, full of childish terror at some primordial nightmare, she ran barefoot all the way to the summit, as the shadows lengthened and the blue sky deepened to a purple dusk.

* * *

><p><em>There are many reasons why I have never taken a Padawan. And foremost among them are all the flaws of all the students with whom I have ever been acquainted. –Yervei Adah, in official correspondence with the Jedi Council.<em>

Obi Wan lay watching the textured ceiling and the translucent, papery walls of the unfamiliar room slowly spin, as though this haven were a boat set adrift upon a lazy stream. He wondered vaguely whether they would find a waterfall ahead and tumble to their destruction upon rocks below….and then he wondered – a difficult thought to formulate – if perhaps the room was not actually moving. Perhaps it was he who was spinning…He tried to shift his arms and legs, but he still could not feel them. Then doubt seized his mind: did he even still possess his limbs? An image of the dreadful B'Omarr monks on Pelion flashed before his eyes, and he cried out in horror.

"Quiet…quiet…don't be a fool, now," an old man's voice murmured.

The old man had a distinctive, odd presence in the Force. He was luminous, though, and that meant he was Jedi. Obi Wan turned his head a little to see him, and the slight motion set the room to blurring and spinning again. "I hate flying," he groaned.

"It's delirium, boy, not flying. Now be quiet," the old man commanded. He had a white, grizzled beard that reached past his waist, and a brown, weather-creased face. Two sharp black eyes flanked a thin nose surmounted by a high, deeply furrowed brow and balding skull. He knelt beside the thin mattress, in meditation posture. There was something ….resentful… in his mood.

"Qui Gon?" the young Jedi rasped, trying unsuccessfully to piece together what had happened between Pelion and here, wherever this was. The room was unbearably hot; waves of fire washed over him again and again, stealing his own warmth, stripping it away until he shivered with cold.

The old man snorted. "I sent him away. Now listen to me. You haven't much time, so don't waste it thinking. Prepare yourself instead."

Obi Wan frowned. Not much time? For what? He shivered in the freezing heat and closed his eyes as the world tilted upside down and then slid sideways, rolling in a sickening spiral. A thought: did the old man mean prepare for death? That must be what he meant. Did the strange being actually intend to kill him? No…. that didn't make sense. He couldn't feel any hostility in his interlocutor, just annoyance and impatience. Maybe the old Jedi misunderstood the situation. "Not dying," he attempted to explain. " The mission."

"Have it your way, you young ass," the white-beard chuffed. "I've done all I can for you. Your friends will be back soon, I have no doubt, wanting their dinner. So I can't stay here debating with you all night."

Debate? What an insufferable grouch the old Jedi was. Obi Wan felt temper flare, a lightning flash in his bleary mind, lending sudden vigor. "Then go to the hells," he muttered, well past self-restraint.

The old man gripped his shoulder hard, cutting into flesh with bony fingers. "If you were not a dying man, that impertinence would earn you a lesson with my saber," he growled.

"You wouldn't last long," the Padawan snipped, gritting his teeth against another wave of vertigo.

Anger flashed across the Force between them. "Neither will you," the ancient one shot back. He laid a cool hand across the young Jedi's forehead, calmly assessing. "No," he decided. "Neither will you." Then he rose and strode out of the room, into the space beyond the partition, leaving a dizzying ripple of irritation in his wake.

Obi Wan scowled at the deepening shadows on the walls. The sun was setting, outside, on whatever world this was. With the dark came the cold…and fire. The agony that had been clamped around his spine for endless hours now seemed to erupt everywhere in his body, a diaspora of pain. He burned and burned with fever and hurt, until the world mercifully spun out and fell into a slow, bottomless night.


	3. Chapter 3

**On Distant Shores (III)**

_True balance is tipped ever so slightly in favor of the Light. And this infinitesmal difference we give the name "hope." – Jedi Master Chakora Seva (attributed)_

Qui Gon reached the summit of his climb just as night fell. In his memory he carried the names of the dozen or so Nautolan villagers to whom he had been hastily introduced, amid much exclamation and curiosity, as well as his promise to return to them again if he were able. In his hand he carried the _val-timeon,_ a wreath of chorysis flowers braided together by skillful hands. "_Not if your friend grows better….when,"_ Po Tikkoro had said. "_These flowers bring healing to the sick."_ And so they might; Qui Gon had read of their properties somewhere. Due to a peculiarity of it chemistry, the chorysis when it blossomed exuded a superabundance of pure oxygen and a heavy, sweet scent that acted as a natural sedative. It was doubtless helpful in ordinary cases of illness, a cherished folk remedy. He did not have the heart to refuse the kind gift.

As the Jedi master crested the last ridge, the Duchess came flying up the path from the opposite direction, her appearance uncharacteristically disheveled. When she spied him, she slowed her pace and hastily composed herself, not wishing to seem alarmed. Qui Gon smiled. A Jedi not judge by mere outward appearances – but he made no remark upon her fear, or her filthy bare feet. Best to keep the fragile peace between himself and the temperamental Mandalorian woman. He knew that she had been offended by their earlier exchange.

"Master Jinn," she greeted him. "I moved the shuttle further up the beach. The tide has come in."

"That was well thought of," he answered.

At that moment, Yervei Adah;s head thrust itself through the doorway of his raised dwelling. "What have you there?" he demanded, suspicioiusly, peering at the flowers dangling from Qui Gon's hand.

"A gift from the Kamaji clan," the Jedi master responded, ascending the short flight of steps. "They send their respectful greetings to you."

Adah scowled as they entered. "I told you they would find your presence disturbing," he grumbled.

"They were most hospitable," Qui Gon shrugged, with a slight emphasis on _they._

Adah's black eyes glinted. "You should eat," he said, indicating some flatbread and tropical nuts laid upon the low table. "Then see to your Padawan. His time runs short. In the morning, you will find dry wood against the back of this house. Build the pyre on the beach where your ship is set; the Kamaji are not familiar with our customs."

Qui Gon favored the old man with an angry glare, and then calmed himself. He could feel the Duchess watching him closely. He made a curt bow to their host and stepped into the other room, where Obi Wan lay feverish on the thin sleeping _hami._ His Force presence was a churning storm, ragged and obscured by pain, lit here and there by a lightning flash of brilliant resistance. Satine gravely took the wreath of chorysis from Qui Gon's hands and draped it about the young Jedi's neck. She pressed her fingers against his eyelids, a ritual gesture.

"Gess ahnd imah nu be,: she murmured, in her a dialect of her own people. Then she withdrew, her face full of undisguised sorrow.

What healing skill Qui Gon possessed was basic, unrefined. But he knelt down and placed his hands gently on Obi Wan's chest and navel, the simplest energetic centers. He summoned to mind what little he had been taught, what little beyond that he had garnered from experience. He tried to make of himself a pure conduit of the Force. Adah might be willing to do nothing, but he would not cease this fight until he was emptied of strength and life. He slipped into a light trance, and breathed, while the night grew older and the fragrant chorysis slowly unfurled their buds, releasing their riches into the air.

* * *

><p><em>You may be a natural born leader, but take care: there will be many eager to play the role of counselor. Many who should not be trusted. –Garred Almeck , of Mandalore, to Duchess Satine Kryze.<em>

Satine hunched in a miserable ball, her thin garments sticky with the humidity of the jungle, her heart heavy with the promise of sorrow to come. She had drunk deeply of death in the last year, drained its bitter cup again and again; and yet the iron taste of despair still burned in her throat, twisted salt tears from her eyes. She had drunk her fill. Must her heart swallow this final poison, too? Why had the bounty hunter not killed her? Surely this lingering destruction was the more cruel fate.

An age-spotted hand came to rest lightly in her shoulder, like a bird roosting on a branch. "Come," Yervei Adah said, in a low tone. "Do not weep for their folly. You are not one of them; their delusion is not yours. Neither should their suffering be."

She looked up, into his bottomless black eyes. He was not like the other Jedi, somehow. He did not carry the lightsaber, for one thing. At least, it was nowhere visible on his person. And there was something inscrutable in those dark eyes – not inscrutable like Qui Gon, whose keen grey gaze kept all its own counsel, nor like Obi Wan whose green-blue eyes betrayed flashes of humor, empathy, or occasional whiplash temper which he tried so hard to mask with perfect Jedi calm. No, there was something _truly_ hidden there in Adah's face – inhuman, even, like nature itself. Like the sea which surrounded them on all sides, boundless, powerful, indifferent to their joy and pain.

"You are indeed not a Jedi," the old man observed dryly, or you would have made that assessment in a far more subtle fashion."

Satine blushed. "Forgive me. You are only the third Jedi I have ever met."

"I am the _only_ Jedi you have ever met," he corrected, imperiously. "Your friends stray far from the true path. They have been brought up in the ways of error, and know nothing better. The Council long ago abandoned the path of sanity and peace."

Taken aback, she felt a stirring of defensive anger. "What do you mean?" she demanded. "Those two men are among the most courageous and noble I have known…even though they are warriors."

Adah considered her in his turn, piercing black eyes boring into her soul. She shrank under the scrutiny. "Ah," he spoke after a moment. "I see. You are of the Mandoa. How strange. I know your people well. Or, I did. That was long ago. Before Carthex Minor. Or Galidraan."

She gasped. "How old are you?"

His mouth thinned. "Nearing a second century now. There are benefits to living in accord with the Force, rather than using it as a mere tool. Your Jedi burn their candles at both ends. If they sought balance rather than action, they would not expire so quickly. Not that many of them reach a natural term of life anymore. How old is that boy, hm?" he queried, gesturing to the partition that separated their half of the small shelter. "Not much past twenty, yes? And yet he has skirted death a dozen times, I would wager. Now why is that?"

"He leads a dangerous life," Satine countered.

"No. He leads a _violent_ life. What does the lightsaber signify, do you think? Violence. I know: they call themselves diplomats. Peace-keepers. But they are committed to _violence_. Not simply the kind that can be wrought with a saber, either. Their relationship to the Force itself is a violent one; they seek to use the mystery to change the universe, to alter events and establish what they judge to be right order. But the Force is not a tool for petty tyrants, whatever the sanctimonious Council may think. The very notion is supremely arrogant. The Jedi Order has deviated far from its original chartered purpose: contemplation and knowledge. It has transformed into a mad crusaders' society. I can sense that you perceive this to be true."

She hesitated. "I have not thought of it in your terms before," she hedged. "You appeal to much I hold dear. …I do not know what to think."

Adah stood, casting a skeletal shadow upon the paper-thin wall. "You have an emotional attachment to the younger one," he stated, without looking at her. "Is it reciprocated?"

Now there was a difficult question. "No," she snapped. "Of course not. He is a Jedi."

Adah ignored this protest. "If you truly wish him well, you will do all in your power to dissuade him from that path. And I think," he added gravely, "That you underestimate your power in that regard."

She fixed her gaze on the muted silhouettes of the jungle outside. Condensing steam rose off the leaves and plants, delicate tendrils of mist hanging in the air like so many unspoken thoughts.

"Please," she sighed. "I am quite weary."

Adah padded across the floor to his doorway. "A storm is coming," he said, dispassionately, as he exited.

* * *

><p><em>Of course they welcomed you, brother. My people always love a jester. – Jedi Knight Kit Fisto, to Qui Gon Jinn<em>

When dawn set the fibrous walls aglow with golden light, the room was thick with the scent of chorysis blossoms. The flowers had shed their petals in the night, dropping bold white shapes and a fine dust of pollen on clothing, blankets, floor. Obi Wan slept, deeply, peacefully, sunk in an infantile oblivion after the protracted siege of the fever. His skin was cool, prickly with dried sweat. Qui Gon released an eternal breath, feeling his limbs slacken with relief. He levered himslef to his feet, one cracking joint at a time. And yet, despite his weariness, a joyful gratitude swelled and filled him. He breathed in the Living Force, which danced here, gently chiming.

It spoke to him, as it sometimes did. Silently, he passed to the adjacent room, where the Duchess lay curled in a pathetic ball upon the floor, fast asleep. Adah was nowhere to be seen. Qui Gon padded past her and out the door into the day's first light.

He descended the hill toward the Kamaji village, obeying the profound urging of his own instincts. He was needed there; in some way, they had been guided to this far-flung world for a purpose beyond his desire to seek out Adah's help.

No sooner had he set foot in the village's broad central square than the tall Jedi was greeted enthusiastically by its denizens. "Ke Gon!" Po Tikkoro exclaimed, his headtails fanning out as he swung his head round from mending an enormous net. "You are come just on a good time! We go fishing today! Your friend: he is better?"

"Yes, thank you."

The Nautolan clapped his hands together. "Then you shall come with us. We shall send some food back with you. Good meat will heal him faster."

Another kinsman, the young one named Tip Haaleh, grinned widely. He must be twelve or thirteen, Qui Gon judged, looking at the youthful Nautolan' gangly limbs and happy, still-childish face. He remembered Obi Wan at the same age – just as gangly, but far more serious. "Do they fish in the stars, Ke Gon?" the boy asked.

The Jedi chuckled. "No. You shall have to teach me how."

"I shall teach him!" Tip yelped, executing a triumphant, capering dance which no Jedi initiate would dare perform in the Temple's hushed corridors. The Nautolan boy's eyes glimmered with mirth. "I am the teacher today. You shall call me Ke-ma," he commanded. "No disrespect. I am a hard teacher." He tossed the finished net into Qui Gon's arms and bounced where he stood, unable to hold still.

Yes, that was familiar too. Young males of every species could stand some training in _patience._ Tip raked a critical and appraising eye over Qui Gon's tall form. "Hey! Ke Tikkoro! We will out-row you today, I think. You will be choking on our waves all the way." He laughed and scampered away to the edge of the village, where long hollowed out canoe were drawn up on the shore.

Pi Tikkoro turned long-suffering opal eyes on Qui Gon. "Come. That boy is a brat-child. You will handle him? It is well?"

"No worries, friend. I have many years of experience."

The Kumaji fishing fleet consisted of every able bodied male in the community – some two hundred green-skinned Nautolans, their headtails fantastically ornamented with colored bands and braided strips. They rowed the long ships with thin paddles, cutting over the sea at breakneck speed, sometimes sailing air-borne over a large wave only to slap down beyond its crest with loud shouts of enthusiasm and laughter. The Kumaji laughed a great deal, the Jedi observed. Soaking wet with sea water and sweat from the hard exercise, he allowed himself to release his own worry, the strain of the last few days. He laughed with them, and put his great strength into rowing, hard. To the wild delight of Tip Haaleh, he drove their craft to the front of the fleet, vying with Po Tikkoro for lead position.

"Faster!" Tip hollered, leaning far over the side, trying to grab the other boat's stern. "Faster, I say!"

"Yes, Ke-ma," Qui Gon grunted, chuckling, and put his back into it.

Hours later, they turned the fishing vessels back to shore – no more than a distant speck on the horizon. Incredibly, the Kamaji had propelled themselves at least forty klicks off shore to their fishing grounds. The canoe were now laden with _balhu _and _nomassah_ caught by the spear-bearing fishermen who dove deep beneath the surface to hunt, and with smaller fish caught in the floating nets. Silver backed and muscular, these looked like the common schooling varieties found on a dozen other worlds.

"A good day," Po Tikkorro pronounced, now paddling his boat companionably beside the Jedi's. Tip rested in the bows of their boat, allowing his "student" to do all the work. "We can eat for a week or more off all these. Last month was harder."

"Do you always come so far?" Qui Gon queried. "Surely there is food closer to the island."

There used to be," the Nautolan answered. "But the _carrpi_ – the hard shells – they have eaten it all. They are enormous this year. Even bigger than last. You should see the one I caught last moon cycle. My wife has made a cradle from the shell. And there are some on the reef as big as this boat. Bigger, Ke Gon." His face sobered. "Do they have things like that in the stars?"

Qui Gon frowned. The Force twisted gently, warning him of danger on the horizon. But the feeling quickly subsided. "I have seen many enormous things in the galaxy. But do these hard shells have no enemies? Predators? What eats them?"

Po Tikkoro shrugged. "The whaladons," he said, as though this were obvious, a child's common knowledge. "But we have not seen them in years, I think."

"They are too lazy to migrate south," Tip supplied. "They are lazy like my bad student."

"Nonsense!" his kinsman scoffed. "They are wise creatures. Smarter than you, Tip. But we have not seen them in a long while. SO the hard shells are getting bigger. Nothing eats them, they eat all the fish – do you see how it works, Ke Gon?"

"Yes," the Jedi replied thoughtfully. "Have you asked Master Adah about the whaladons? He may have insight you do not possess."

"We did ask Ke Adah," Tip eagerly told him. "He said that it is part of the great balance. We should not worry. It is how the world goes. Do you know this Force he speaks of?"

Qui Gon smiled bitterly. "Master Adah and I…may have a different point of view."

"What point of view?" Po Tikkorro mused. "I do not understand your words, Ke Gon."

But Tip was already thinking of something else. "The only point of view you are going to see is my _behind,_ Ke Tikkorro! We will race you to the shore and eat all the fish before you arrive! Faster, lazy student, faster! Row, row!"

Qui Gon pushed the conundrum of the _carrpi_ out of his mind, and threw himself into the race, exulting in the wind and the water and their unbridled speed.


	4. Chapter 4

**On Distant Shores (IV)**

_Have I missed something? – Obi Wan Kenobi_

Rain drummed against the fibrous roof, a continuously shifting pattern of scales and arpeggios, the soft but lively music of the rain forest. For a long time he simply listened; and then he opened his eyes in the muted light of the rainy afternoon and watched the rivulets' shadows trail down the translucent walls, tiny shivering streams that joined and separated and wove through each other in a never-ending dance.

Voices rose and fell in concert with the rainfall, in the next room – a space separated off by a thin layer of parchment and wood. Two men, and a woman. Qui Gon. Satine. And the old Jedi – the strange, unsympathetic healer whose home this must be. There was the scent of food in the air: salty, with a tang of the sea. Kelp perhaps. Or fish. He swallowed, and found that his mouth was dry and parched. And then he shifted a little, cautiously, and discovered that he could feel hands and feet, legs and arms. They were immensely heavy, as though somebody had tweaked the gravity generator.

Drawing in a deep breath, relieved and half-surprised that he could fill his lungs without lancing pain shooting across his ribs, he struggled to push himself into a sitting position. This battle won at last, he rested, shocked to hear his own pulse drumming loudly in his ears. His breaths came rapid and shallow. But at least the room was no longer spinning. His stomach ached – he was as hollow and empty as a dried chenki gourd, of the type vendors sold as tourist souvenirs on impoverished backworlds.

The voices stopped murmuring. Qui Gon said something, quietly, and footfalls pattered across the hard floor. Satine appeared, pushing aside a panel of the partition. Her feet were bare, and her clothing looked even more bedraggled than it had before. But she stood crowned in her own silver-gold halo, her beauty setting the Force alight. He sucked in a sharp breath, reeling beneath the welcome, familiar blow to the solar plexus. She paused, eyes resting on him with a soft expression his groggy, chenki-gourd mind could not quite fathom.

Then Qui Gon slipped past her, and time resumed its wonted motion. The Jedi master dropped to one knee beside the sleeping mat and laid a broad hand on his apprentice's shoulder. His presence was like the sun's omnipresent, limitless warmth; so different from Satine's devastating, unattainable starlight.

"It is good to see you awake and well, Padawan," the tall man said.

"Awake, anyway," Obi Wan breathed. "_Well_ might depend on your point of view."

Qui Gon chuckled, the smile lines at the corners of his eyes deepening. "Awake and ironic," he murmured. "That is still an improvement. Can you eat?"

"A raw gundark," Obi Wan replied. Together they grinned a little, sharing an inside joke.

"Awake and ironic _and_ hungry. I needn't have worried at all, I see."

Satine reappeared beside him, and placed a steaming bowl of broth in the young Jedi's hands. Simu, with kelp and tiny flecks of fish meat. He nodded his thanks and slowly drank, gratefully letting the hot liquid run down his throat and warm his insides. When he had finished, he set the dish down and made an experimental attempt at standing. It was not successful.

"Easy," Qui Gon warned. "No practice in the dojo for you quite yet. Rest."

Obi Wan glanced over to Satine. "But, master, the mission-"

"Will wait. We're safe here, for the time being. And here we shall stay as long as we need to." He exerted a gentle pressure on his student's shoulder. "_Rest."_

"So…you have decided to prove me wrong, Obi Wan Kenobi." This voice belonged to the old Jedi, who now stood behind Qui Gon . His black eyes looked down on the Padawan with a glittering intensity, as though unsure what to make of him. "Does that mean I still owe you a lesson in respect?"

Obi Wan bowed his head. "I humbly ask your forgiveness. I spoke in haste..and I regret my words. I am very grateful to you for your assistance."

Adah was unmoved by the gesture or the words. "Hm," he snorted. "I interfered because your friends demanded it most stridently. For good or for ill, you owe me nothing. If you wish to show true gratitude, however, you will recover quickly and leave this world in peace. And while you are here, you will take care not to meddle with its tranquility. It exists in balance, and has no need of your presence."

Obi Wan looked to Qui Gon for clarification, but his mentor's face was strictly expressionless – a cue to ask questions later. There was something offensive, even hostile in the old man's demeanor… and in his exhausted condition, he could not form a properly neutral response.

"I see you have taught your Padawan to keep his tongue between his teeth – at least on occasion," the ancient Jedi remarked. "That is commendable, Master Jinn."

"I also thank you, whether you will accept it or not," the latter said, rising to his feet. "I see that you can be persuaded to practice the way of compassion – at least on occasion. That too is commendable, Master Adah."

The two Jedi masters stood glaring at each other, for a long moment.

"Perhaps we should allow Obi Wan to rest," Satine diplomatically intervened. The two men nodded curtly and withdrew, leaving them alone in the tranquil space. Satine lingered, gaze dropping to elegant hands lying folded in her lap.

"On Pelion…" she began in a low, husky voice. "I thought…"

Obi Wan stirred fretfully. "The Jedi have a saying: _do not look back_."

Her lovely brows drew together thunderously. "You also have a saying: _fret not for the future._ If you cannot look back, and you should not look forward, Obi Wan Kenobi, then where do you look?"

He blinked, surprised by her vehemence. He was far too tired to argue. "Why are you angry?" he asked, frustrated. Her moods were as incomprehensible as advanced hyperspatial astronavigation.

Now she looked away. "I'm not angry with you," she lied. "But it is quite vexing to make conversation with a man who won't _look_ at anything." She rose haughtily to her feet and skewered him with her most regal gaze. "Perhaps it _is_ time I allowed you to rest." She swept out of the tiny room, with all the cold dignity of an offended queen.

"Rrrrrrnnnnngh," he growled between gritted teeth, and dropped back against the mattress. Outside, the rain resumed its gentle, pattering symphony, and he let its formless melody lull him back to sleep.

* * *

><p><em>Some seek adventure all their lives and never find it. Others stumble upon it the moment they set foot out the door. –from the Corellian "Wise Trader's Almanac" (anonymous)<em>

"But, master…Adah was very clear about his wishes that the Nautolans not be disturbed," Obi Wan protested.

Qui Gon took another few strides down the steep mountain path. Yesterday's rainfall had transformed the narrow trail into a treacherous slick of mud and crushed plant fronds. Ahead of them, Satine's bare feet were caked in the thick, wet clay of the jungle's soil. Qui Gon came next in line, followed by his Padawan, for whom the descent was taxing as a free-handed climb up a sheer rock face.

"it si not his decision whether they are to be disturbed or not," Qui Gon countered, deliberately slowing his pace yet further. "The Nautolans are a free people, not his wards or liegemen. They have asked to meet us again, and that is all that matters."

Obi Wan stopped to lean against a jutting bayana trunk. He hung his head, panting, before he spoke. "I do not think we should provoke Yervei Adah, master. I have a bad feeling about it."

"Come," Qui Gon said, urging him onward. 'I do not intend to _provoke_ Master Adah, Obi Wan. I will do what I think is right. And Master Adah is free to respond in whatever manner he sees fit."

The young Jedi labored down the path for a few more minutes, brooding on this. "You said that about the Council, after we returned from Ballistar," he grumbled when they reached the first bend in the road, where it began to twist its way down to the village below.

"So I did," Qui Gon responded lightly, tramping down the remainder of the squelching trail. At its base the mud gave way to a mixture of clay and sand, where the jungle yielded to the shoreline.

Satine, who had beaten them down the slippery track, sat waiting atop a large, smooth-faced boulder carved with Nautolan ideo-glyphs. "Ready?"

But Obi Wan sank onto another rock and closed his eyes. Qui Gon looked at his colorless face and realized that the short journey – a mere hour's hike from the summit – had been far too strenuous.

Before he could speak his mind on the matter, Po Tikkoro and Tip Hallehappeared around the bend in the trail, both anxious to meet other visitors form the stars. Po Tikkoro greeted Staine with a deep bow. "Lady of the stars," he murmured. "We are honored."

She bestowed a warm smile on him. "We are honored to be your guests here on Merrid Altus."

The ebullient Nautolan turned to Obi Wan next. "And this is your craft-son, Ke Gon?"he inquired.

:"Yes. My Padawan, Obi Wan Kenobi. This is Po Tikkoro of the Kumaji clan."

The young Jedi inclined his head, still looking peaked. Qui Gon and Po Tikkoro each took one of his arms and helped him stand.

"You are on your feet _prella_ fast for a man who swam with death yesterday," the Nautolan addressed him.

"Jedi heal quickly," Qui Gon said. "But some of them push even those limits." He exchanged a meaningful look with his apprentice. Qui Gon had disapproved of Obi Wan's insistence on accompanying the expedition down the mountainside. They had argued the point at length; and the master had ultimately allowed his obstinate student to prevail. It was now obvious who had been the wiser.

Tip Halleh skipped along behind them as they entered the village proper. "You can come to my muma's," he offered. "She is good with the sick ones. She is fixing Selmmi's leg right now."

Po Tikkoro's bright mood clouded over. "Yes, Ke Gon," he said. :It is well that you come now. We need your counsel."

"About this Selmmi?"

"Yes…and no. I am thinking that the Kumaji have found _prella_ bad trouble."


	5. Chapter 5

**On Distant Shores (V)**

_A guest is a fine shell washed up on the shore; welcome others as you were welcomed yourself, on gentle sands. – Nautolan folk proverb_

"Tell me of this trouble," Qui Gon said, after he had been introduced to all thirteen of Po Tikkoro's immediate relatives, and their offspring. "Perhaps I can be of help."

"Is that why you came here?" Tip Haaleh eagerly interjected, earning himself a silencing stare from an older uncle.

Qui Gon smiled at the boy kindly. "No," he admitted. "But the Jedi are sworn to help those in need. This was not the reason I came, but it may be the reason I am here."

Kor Dikko, an old Nautolan with dark age-mottled skin, laughed heartily, a booming sound which bounced off the woven reed walls of the low-roofed house. "You speak like a twisting worm, Ke Gon. So also does Ke Adah. Thus I know you are of one clan. But your eyes are full of the sea, so we will forgive you. Telling trouble is for the sweat lodge, Po."

Po Tikkoro nodded respectfully. "Yes, Kor. Let all the men come to the lodge. We will speak in council there."

"May I come?" Tip implored another uncle.

"He said the _men_," Tip quipped this person, a tall young fellow whose headtails were still short and thick with unshed baby-fat. "You can stay with Ke-Muma."

But the clan matriarch would have none of it. Still graceful in her old age, the old Nautolan woman beetled her brows. "He is useless like a man, so he should stay with them," she commanded. The young uncle cringed away, clearly unwilling to risk her displeasure.

"You," Ke-Muma continued, addressing Satine. "You, sister, if you have any birth-wit, will stay here with me. Their men council is a _prella_ fool gathering. And too hot for your skin, I think."

The Duchess smiled graciously. "Indeed," she concurred. "I have no desire to witness the arcane mysteries of a sweat lodge. I shall remain with you."

The ancient Nautolan chuckled. "Away with you!" she barked at the group of men, including Qui Gon in the peremptory dimissal. "Go!" She shooed them out the door, drawing it closed behind them.

Once the large dwelling had been cleared of unwanted presences, Ke Muma threaded one lean arm through Satine's and pulled her further into the house. "Come. I will make you shoes. Hard on the feet to walk about on your toes. I think."

The Mandalorian woman hesitated, and Ke Muma's large, pearly black eyes glinted knowingly. "Oh," she crooned. "You are worried about the other Jedi, Ke-Wan. He is fine with Troma and Pelli. The daughters of the house are _prella_ good sick-wives. And he is strong, still green-sap…how do you say it? Young? Oh, yes, very strong at that age, like you. Young people they heal so fast. Me not so much these days."

She led the way to a back apartment, where the tools of many simple crafts were laid upon crude tables and benches. She gestured to a stool and gathered the materials for shoe-making. "Let me see these feet of yours. Ah – no webbing. Such funny toes you have. No, no insult. I think in your human clan these are _prella _beautiful feet. They like small and white feet, the men of your kind, yes? And how do you call it? Hair? The gold hair they think is _prella_ beautiful also, I think."

Satine found herself laughing as the old Nautolan deftly measured her foot and began trimming a piece of supple leather. "How do you Nautolans judge beauty?" she asked, consumed by curiosity.

"Beauty," Ke-Muma repeated, thoughtfully. "Oh, I tell you. I remember Kor in his youth." Her opalescent eyes took on a dreamy, faraway look. "Tall, he was, his head like a tree with many strong branches. And he swim like a whaladon strong, he did. His eyes, though – _prella_ beautiful. Black pearls, yes? And wide, his feet and hands. His voice, it drummed low and loud – waves on rocks. Ah…Kor. You have met him. He is my _trothe. _How do you say it?"

"Husband?" the other woman suggested.

Ke-Ma tried the foreign word under her breath a few times. "Not so good sounding as _trothe,_" she decided. "Now maybe you do not think Kor so beautiful. That's fine – you are human. You think some other kind of man _trotha ta mella,_ I think."

Satine watched the old matriarch's strong fingers lace the new sandal onto her foot, testing its fit. "Naturally," she replied.

"Very natural, I think. You think the head with branches not so good. You like maybe…hairs? And tall not so _prella_ much, I think. But strong you like, I see that. All women like the strong, in the stars and here. You like not so much the black pearl eyes. You prefer maybe the ocean color – tide pool eyes, that is what you like. And the voice soft like calm shores, too. All strange to me, but I am Kumaji clan, You and Ke-Gon and Ke-Wan, what clan are you?"

"Ah," Satine answered, admiring the sandals which now adorned her feet. "We are not of one clan. They are Jedi, and I am of the Mandoa people. We are…quite separate."

"But," the old woman amended slyly, "You will be one clan if you take Ke-Wan for _trothe._"

The Duchess sat stunned for a moment. Then she gathered her scattered wits and drew herself up straight. "You misunderstand," she said sharply. "Jedi do not take any _trothe."_

Ke-Muma snorted derisively. "That is a fool waste. How do they have children, then? Your clan, the Mandoa: do you also have this fool custom?"

"No, my people have chosen a far worse folly," Satine sighed , her heart suddenly full of melancholy. "They are too busy killing one another to bother with children or marriage or anything else. I fear there will be none of us left when I return."

The Nautolan crone extended a gnarled green hand and touched the young woman's cheek. "_Li torcah ma,"_ she soothed. "You are a sad people among the stars, I think. I weep for you. Your clan kills its own brothers and you cannot take your chosen _trothe_. I am happy to be here and not there with you." She regarded the Duchess for a long moment, her opaque eyes swirling with gentle emotion. Then she pushed off her stool with a creak and a groan. "Enough sadness. We will make the noon-meal now. You go see Ke-Wan. Find out if he will eat."

Satine nodded, and padded away to another part of the rambling house, her new sandals whispering against the floor mats. A veranda stretched along one side of the structure, forming a covered corridor punctuated by doors set into its thick inner wall. In these guest rooms the village's sick and ill were sheltered.

She found the young Jedi easily enough. He slept still, flushed with renewed fever. She lingered in the doorframe, indecisive, and then drifted across to the bedside. "We are a sad people among the stars," she informed him. "So Ke-Muma says." His cheek was rough beneath her straying fingers, and her hand idly descended to his throat.

With a start like a pouncing colwar, his hand came up to seize her wrist in an iron grip. She gasped, staring into eyes full of blue fire. She had forgotten how fast, how very deadly, Jedi reflexes could be. Instantly perceiving whom it was, his taut expression relaxed.

"You're hurting me," she protested.

His crushing grip sprang open, and the blue fire melted into such profound apology that her heart twisted in her chest. Leaning forward, she pressed her lips to the pained furrow between his brows. His breath fluttered warm in the hollow of her throat, for three ageless heartbeats. When she straightened again, he had drifted back to sleep.

Retreating hastily into the corridor, she hurried back to Ke-Muma and the other Nautolans, whose good-humored chatter echoed off the wooden rafters. But even their joyous voices could not drive away the haunting phrase that tolled like a distant bell behind her thoughts. _You are a sad people among the stars._

* * *

><p><em>They say curiosity killed the gundark. Good thing, too; I owed that guy a lot of money. –Fellmo Symbalon, humorist, at the Coruscant Firebird Club's stand-up hour.<em>

The sweat lodge was almost unbearably hot for a human. The Kumaji men basked in the steam-laden air until it prickled and burned in every pore. Their green and gold and bluish skins shone with droplets as they sat around the edges of the small room on tiered benches hewn of a dark, aromatic wood. In the center, a pit of glowing rocks produced the endless clouds of steam. It was Tip's job periodically to pour water over these heated stones, summoning a new eruption of swirling white vapor. Qui Gon took up a position from which he could hear every voice in the assembly, and drew in careful shallow breaths, the hot, humid air searing in his lungs.

"We speak in council," Kor the elder intoned. When this solemn declaration had been repeated by his kinsmen, he continued. "Selmmi is no fool. His injury is a bad sign."

"It is a good sign," another of the older men said. "A warning. He is fortunate to be alive. We should be grateful for the sign, and move our fishing grounds further out again."

"He was not _in _the fishing grounds!" another objected. "He was launching a boat off the far shore. We cannot fish at all if we cannot even wade in the shallows to take out the boats. We shall starve."

"I do not wish to starve," Tip affirmed, immature voice ringing with sincerity.

"What happened to Selmmi?" Qui Gon interjected, daring to interrupt. "I do not know the story, as you do."

Kor held up a hand for silence. "He went to collect our nets on the far shore. He was attacked by a large hard-shell – bigger than himself, he says. It took off part of his foot and nearly his leg. He is a strong hunter. He will walk again, and fish, too. But the hard shells there are aggressive. We are losing all our fishing grounds to them."

"And you have not encountered these difficulties before?" the Jedi asked.

"No," Tip's very young uncle replied. "I do not remember the carrpi ever being so big. Am I wrong?" But none of the old Nautolans in the lodge disagreed. A few even nodded gravely. "You see, in all our memory, they are never before so huge. They are piled on top of one another at the reef-wall like fruits at a banquet. Crawling and fighting. They eat all the food. We must go far into the sea to find fish."

"And can you hunt the carrpi themselves?"

This was met with laughter. Kor hushed the assembly again. "They are hard shells, Ke-Gon. Our spears and knives do not break their shell after they have grown so big." He held out his hands, about a half meter apart. "You will then need a boulder to crush their shell. Their claws rip through net and anybody who stands in their way. It is not right – they will claw over the whole island, if this keeps up. And the whaladons – they have not come in years. Nobody eats the hard shells, and they eat everybody else. The ocean is out of balance."

"Can you fix it, Ke-Gon?" Tip asked hopefully.

The Jedi sighed. "I cannot restore an entire planet's ecology, " he said. "But perhaps there is more to be seen. The whaladons – you say they migrate annually?"

"South to north and back again. They are the keepers of the seasons," one of the elders spoke. "Their path takes them west of here, along the warm current. It is a well-known sea-road for many creatures."

Qui Gon sat in the burning, choking room and cast his mind back to his fist approach to Merrid Altus. He had been consumed by worry for his apprentice, not observant as he should have been….but indistinct images floated into memory. Images that should have made more impression on his mind before. The ice caps had been unusually extensive, huge tracts of white glacial plains at either pole. An idea began to form in his imagination.

"What more to see?" Po Tikkoro urged him. "Have you seen something about our world from the stars?"

"Not the stars precisely," the Jedi master told him. "But from orbit, yes."

This statement earned him a dozen stares of blank incomprehension.

He tried again. "I have flown around your world," he explained. "At the far north, where the whaladons migrate, there is a land of ice. I think we should go look for them there. Perhaps we will discover why they are missing. And this may help us decide what to do about the carrpi."

There was much murmuring and disagreement. The Nautolans debated in their native tongue for several long minutes, until Kor signalled for quiet. "Impossible, Ke Gon," the elder sighed. "Even our best ship-masters cannot go all the way to the north. The currents are too strong, and the journey perilous."

"We will fly," Qui Gon laughed. "I have a ship."

"A…ship?" Tip squeaked. "A _flying _ship?"

The Force shuddered and swelled with the shocked emotion his revelation had elicited. The Nautolans fell into a hushed reverence, watching him through clouds of steam with enormous opal-black eyes.

"Yes," he repeated gently. "A starship."


	6. Chapter 6

**On Distant Shores (VI)**

_The only cure for weakness is strength – Mandalorian aphorism_

The rain poured down in endless sheets, blurring the dawn light to a muted silver sheen. But the drops were warm, like a bath; they danced and sprang off every dripping leaf and branch, a mad carillion of transparent sprites. Green things unfurled and drank deeply, and small crawling animals frolicked and skittered in the downpour. The Force was shimmering with the soft, supple energy of the life-giving water – an invigorating, encouraging thrill in his blood.

Obi Wan carefully crept a hundred meters from the house and found what he needed. A narrow trail, probably beaten into the jungle's growth by some large foraging beast. With any luck it would wind round the mountainside, over and under obstacles, and across any number of challenging terrains. The perfect training circuit.

He was quite done being an invalid. He had meekly endured a day and a night under the watchful maternal eyes of Ke-Muma and her assorted female relatives, confined to the Nautolan house like an ailing infant while Qui Gon held court with the village's leaders. His injury was healed; he had rested; what lethargy remained in his limbs could be purged away with exercise and the Force. He gathered its strength inward, reveling in in its untamed intensity here on this verdant island, and set off along his chosen course at a light jog, quickly picking up speed to a flat out run. He leapt over fallen branches, tried an experimental forward flip over a dip in the land, skidded around a hairpin turn, came to jagged cliff-face and climbed it free-hand.

At the top he lay panting in the tall, soggy grass. The warm rain soaked him, washing away sweat and dirt. Washing away illness and injury. He felt his heart racing, his chest heaving – and sprang up again. He would push on. He took off at a run again, this time vaulting obstacles one-handed, swinging into the top of an aoli grove and leaping from branch to branch. Soon he reached the seaside again, every muscle burning. He reversed direction and headed back for the village, a distant cluster of twinkling lights. The surf surged and splashed at his feet as he ran, sinking deeper and deeper into the Force as he pushed his protesting body past weakness and drew in its pure, limitless strength.

When he reached the outskirts of the settlement, a few Nautolans were milling about on the beach – fishermen, perhaps. He made a long loop around the early-risers and came up to the house from the back side, walking now, enjoying the rain. It felt cool against his hot skin, and its noise drowned out his ragged breath. With a grunt of annoyance, he discovered that someone had locked the small side door through which he had exited two hours earlier.

"What do you think you are doing?" a familiar voice inquired. Obi Wan glanced to his left, startled to find Qui Gon waiting under the roof's narrow overhang. The Jedi master's arms were folded over his chest in a challenging posture.

"Taking light exercise, master."

"Really?" Qui Gon unfolded his arms, dangling a pair of compact macrobinoculars in one hand. "I would have characterized that training circuit as _vigorous _exercise, unsuitable for a convalescent."

"I agree," Obi Wan answered, flatly, waving a hand to send the door's interior locking mechanism clattering open.

But Qui Gon held up a hand, fingers extended, to hold the panel closed with the Force. "You are not using good judgment, Padawan. Your desire to heal so quickly is a path leading from impatience to disaster. You will control your emotions and accept weakness as long as it is yours to bear."

The young Jedi bristled, but said nothing.

"This mission is not one which I desire to continue alone," Qui Gon added. "I need you fully recovered and at your best – which means no more foolish attempts to induce a relapse or a second illness. You are a Jedi; but you are still vulnerable, especially now."

Obi Wan shifted, wrestling his resentment under control. "Master," he said stiffly. "I understand. But the mission. We cannot stay here any longer than necessary. The Duchess-"

"Agrees with me," Qui Gon cut him off. "As do our hosts. We will stay here until you are ready. And that is not something you can speed along through willful stupidity."

The Padawan's brows drew together, but he kept his temper leashed. "Yes, master," he responded tightly.

Qui Gon released the door and watched his sopping apprentice slip inside the Nautolan clan-house, frustration and dismay trailing behind him like the small puddles he left on the broad red tiles of the passage. When Obi Wan had disappeared from sight and range of hearing, he broke into a rueful chuckle. Shaking his head, he strode off under the narrow awning toward the front of the house.

He had another appointment to keep.

* * *

><p><em>They have captured the imagination of many scholars. And I daresay, captured a few of the scholars themselves. Zoology is a dangerous undertaking that way. – Madame Jocasta Nu, Jedi archivist, on the subject of Whaladonis Deluvianis<em>

Qui Gon kept the shuttle at a low altitude – a thousand meters above the surface of the endless rippling seas. Atmospheric cruising burned much more fuel than low velocity space travel, but he could not deny the Nautolans a chance to see their home from a bird's eye perspective. Brought up a Jedi on a sophisticated world, raised knowing that he would not only fly but jump across vast galactic distances from star system to star system, Qui Gon had long taken the miracle of flight for granted. His passengers, however, were another story. The elders who had been chosen for this journey, along with Po Tikkoro and Tip, had their noses glued to the viewport. Their astonished delight was an intoxicating burst of joy in the Force. It filled the cockpit with invisible light, the ephemeral corona of pure, childlike wonder.

"Look how the side of the world bends!" Tip enthused. "I can see to the other side of the ocean, where there is nothing."

"Go beneath those clouds, Ke Gon," Po Tikkoro urged.

"_Temboro…temboro…_" Kor murmured reverently, beneath his breath, a wide white grin making his aged face seem forty years younger.

"There is the ice-land!" another elder shouted, pointing a spotted hand to the approaching northern horizon, where the first ragged edges of white were now visible.

Qui Gon cut the thrusters and dropped them even lower, so they might have a good view of the frozen expanses below. The scanners and magnetic compass tracked their position and compiled a holographic map of the region as they passed over it. The Nautolans derived almost as much pleasure from the slowly evolving hologram as they did from the experience of flight itself.

"Look at this light-picture, Tip!" Po Tikkoro enthused. "Here is the whole world, and here is the top of it. You could play with it like a ball."

"Where is our island?" Tip wanted to know. Soon the entire company was busily engaged in pointing out features of the tiny, flickering globe. They clustered about it like six and seven year old initiates catching their first glimpse of the map room in the Jedi Temple. Qui Gon, seated at the pilot's console, thought of his fellow Jedi Kit Fisto. Kit had a reputation for enjoying _everything-_ even a pitched battle. Perhaps some of Kit's high spirits were an inheritance from his people…and perhaps some of his legendary bravery, as well. For Qui Gon had not sensed the slightest tremor of fear in a single one of his passengers. That was impressive, considering that he had exposed them to a shatteringly new experience, one for which they had no previous context.

They flew lower and lower, skimming now over undulating mountains of ice, threaded by deep blue lakes and rivers where the glaciers cracked and divided. The ice was white and blue, sometimes smooth and sometimes rough – a wild, unfinished artwork waiting for the artist to return to his canvas.

Tip was the first to see them. "Whaladons!" he shouted, jumping up and down in the small cockpit space. "See! There! Look how many!"

Qui Gon made a loop and came down yet closer, where towering icebergs walled off a jagged inlet of water. In the lake's indigo depths swam creatures of immense size, their graceful bodies appearing and disappearing again below the surface, leaving splendid jets of expelled air trailing in the frigid air.

"They are here," Kor rumbled. "They have been here all this time. Look, my sons – they are captive. The ice had closed off their way.. This is why we have not seen them in all these seasons. They can no longer make their great path across the sea-road."

The Nautolans exchanged various exclamations of sorrow and awe, gazing at the whaladon colony trapped within the mighty glacial walls. The expanding ice cap had effectively locked them in place, creating a vast cage with walls a hundred klicks thick. Even if there were submerged pathways, a whaladon could not swim under water for so long without expiring. They were air breathers, like most land animals, and needed to surface for fresh oxygen.

Qui Gon lifted the ship again and headed further north. "We will make a survey," he decided, dispelling his anxiety about the fuel levels. "Let us see how many are trapped here, and complete a map of the region. Then we will return to your village and weigh our options."

"A plan?" Kor rubbed one hand over his long, hoary headtails. "Ke Gon, you cannot fight the ice. It is part of the balance. So says Ke Adah and he is right."

Qui Gon raised an eyebrow. "You are also part of the balance, Kor. Your people, and the islands. Do not forget yourself when you speak of balance."

Po Tikkoro, who had been listening to this exchange, shook his head dubiously.. "Ke Adah is not going to like this at all," he warned.

"Ke Adah does not like many things," was Tip's unsolicited comment.

"Quiet, brat-child," Po frowned affectionately. "You should speak only when spoken to. And maybe not even then."

* * *

><p><em>Bone. Easy to break it is. But mend itself, it will. Strong is that which cannot be broken. Stronger is that which can. – Master Yoda, to Obi Wan Kenobi<em>

The ancient Nautolan called Dae Jallo tugged at one end of his fishing net, dragging it a half-meter up the stony beach. Though old and bent, his back still bulged with hard muscles. He took a deep breath and hauled the heavy mass of fiber over the last stretch of rocks and sand, dropping it in a heap at the foot of the wooden mending frame.

"Ha ha," he remarked, popping his hip joint back into place. "Now let's see what a mess these young fools made of my net." He took a long drink from his water skin and tossed it aside. "If I can get this _shezzah_ thing up on the frame, that is."

Obi Wan smiled a little, and held out a hand, fingers extended. He felt the Force flow around and through him, lifted the net off the ground and draped it gracefully over the top bar of the frame, tugging it into place with a subtle snap of the wrist.

"Nicely done!" Dae laughed when he had finished. "That is a fine trick, young Ke Wan. Your people – they can all do this?" He made a comical gesture with his hands, twisting and pushing in the air in a grotesque caricature of Obi Wan's own movements. His black eyes widened theatrically.

Despite his sour mood, the young Jedi laughed. "Not _quite_ like that. But yes. We do that, when necessary."

The old Nautolan set about examining the net for damage. "Those _shezzah_ hard shells tore up my net," he grumbled. "Look at this, and this." He sucked on his sunken upper lip mournfully, and set about mending several gaping holes in the mesh. "This thing is broken bad. Take some time to fix, you see." He shot Obi Wan a piercing look over one shoulder.

The Padawan wrapped Ke-Muma's blanket tighter about his shoulders. Though the day was warm, he could not stop shivering. His morning run had sapped all his vitality, as though he had poured it down a well and had nothing left. And his back ached, with an elusive memory of pain. It was difficult to keep his aggravation suppressed.

Since he received no immediate answer, Dae pressed on. "But don't worry – this is a good net. I will set it straight and we shall use it again. I shall make it stronger than it was before – better woven here and here. A good mending job: that is better than a new net. New one – it takes time to season. This one already well-seasoned. It just is needing a little care. Biut I cannot throw it back in te water right yet. You see?" He paused, regarding his guest with soft opal eyes. "Only a bad fisherman would throw this valuable net back in the water without mending. I do not think Ke Gon is such a fool fisherman as that, do you?"

"He is no fool," the young Jedi agreed, heavily, tamping down his acute irritation with the Jedi master. Qui Gon had forbidden him to accompany the expedition to the northern pole – a restriction that had provoked another strained exchange between them.

Dae laughed again. "You sulk like a brat-child whose father has told him not to play with the sharks, Ke Wan, am I right?"

Obi Wan released a long breath. The old Nautolan was far too perceptive. Standing, he made old Dae a bow. "I must go indoors," he said, excusing himself.

At the beach head, he nearly collided with Satine. "I've been looking for you everywhere," she said accusingly. "A child has gone missing. The villagers cannot find her, and they think she wandered toward the fishing grounds. Most the men are gone offshore or with Qui Gon." She hesitated, her agitation twisting through the Force. "Obi…they are very afraid."

A scraping note of unease clawed down his spine, reawaking the embers of pain lurking beneath its surface. His hand went to his saber hilt.

"Qui Gon said you were not to overexert yourself, "she reminded him, seeing the light in his eyes. But her face was full of terror for the missing child, and compassion for the Nautolans. Had she announced that a clutch of murderous draigons waited on the beach, his reaction would have been the same.

"I'm fine," he asserted. "Which way do they think she went?"


	7. Chapter 7

**On Distant Shores (VII)**

_It's true: size matter not. But I still prefer my opponents to be on the smaller side of two tons, don't you?—Swordsmaster Anoon Bondara, to Mace Windu_

The path to the fishing grounds was a twisting, uneven thread wending its way through the forested hillsides to a curving bay surrounded by large boulders. Obi Wan hurried along the track, senses unfurled, questing through the Force to find the missing girl. As he neared the beach again after descending the far slope, he felt a thin note of fear hanging suspended in his awareness – a child's terrified plea for help.

He dropped down the last few meters of the cliff above the rocks, landing hard on one knee. Breathing hard, he raked his gaze over the boulders along the shoreline. The surf pounded and frothed among them, sending up showers of spray like geysers. At first he could see no one – but then he spotted her. A tiny girl, crouched atop the largest stone. Her short tunic dress was wringing wet, and she clung to the rock's edge, cringing away from the water. Fear pounded in the Force, louder than the crashing waves.

He picked his way over the first line of stones, springing onto one of the massive chunks which formed the natural jetty. Upon seeing him, the girl began to scream uncontrollably, waving her skinny arms and shouting in her native language. He jumped forward to the next rock, and the next, relieved that the child's predicament was nothing worse than a case of getting caught out on the jetty in high surf.

The Nautolan girl screamed again and gestured frantically. Instinct flared a sharp warning, and Obi Wan leapt – just as the rock under his feet shifted, lurching beneath his boots with an unexpected, impossible rolling motion. He landed on the next rounded shape, nearly losing his balance as it too moved. A backflip brought him to another rock, which twisted and brought up a claw larger than his body to snap at him. A pair of eye stalks watched him spring away, and a second claw nipped at his heels as he sailed overhead.

Heart throbbing, he twisted about on the next monster's back. The entire jetty was nothing but a mass of crustaceans, each as large as a boulder, some of them outweighing an adult male bantha. Their barnacle encrusted bodies hung with weeds and slime, and their claws now lashed the foaming surf into violent contortions. Horribly, they began to crawl over and on top of each other, vying to seize him in serrated claws. A gap appeared in the pile, allowing salty ocean water to gush over the nearest creatures' backs, cutting off his path to the Nautolan girl.

The young Jedi launched himself over the widening gap and sprang onto a smaller crab's wide shell. The girl tottered and began to fall as her resting place – the only real rock in the entire tumble of seething armor and claw – was scaled by a massive specimen with eight identical pairs of articulated legs. Obi Wan activated his saber, and soared through the space between the girl and her attacker, shearing off the thing's foremost claw with one stroke. The opposite arm caught him in mid-leap and sent him crashing onto the slimy stone. He gasped as his back struck the crusty rock, and braced himself upright with one foot and his free hand. The girl was trembling and screaming in hysteria, her short headtails standing out from her head in fright like the crest of an exotic lizard.

Another claw swung for them, and he cut that off, too – and then another. He severed an eye stalk, a pair of smaller legs, sawed through a crab no bigger than a womprat, and impaled the next monster to make its way to the top. The Nautolan clung to his right leg, her tiny hands digging in behind his knee, her face buried against his thigh. He flourished his weapon threateningly as another hard-shell made a charge at him, then cut its front legs out form under it, Force-throwing its body into the next assailant. The things rattled and seethed on all sides, an angry mob hungry for gladiatorial combat.

Obi Wan could feel his still limited strength ebbing away. They must escape. His left hand groped for his cable launcher and shot its line over the swarming crustaceans. The grappling tip arced clear over the shoreline and fixed itself halfway up the cliff face. He made a last ferocious attack upon the nearest crab, kicking it hard into the one scrabbling up behind it, clipped the saber to his belt, scooped the girl up in one arm, and retracted the cable as he jumped. He and the tiny Nautolan swept upward in a swooping flight over the monsters' heads, over the jagged boulders of the beach – and straight into the unforgiving cliff-face.

"_Blast,"_ he hissed as his one free arm took their full weight. His shoulder and back screamed with sudden fire, as the strain pulled on his spine. His feet slipped against the smooth rock, looking for leverage. He found a foothold, pushed upward, pressed the cable's retractor again, Nothing,. The mechanism must have jammed.

"Can you hold me?" he asked the blubbering girl. "Hold me. Hold on."

Eventually she got the idea and clambered onto his shoulders, panicked fingers clawing into his flesh with desperate, terror-stricken strength. He started climbing, hand over hand, gritting his teeth to stop himself crying aloud. Meter by meter he closed the distance, at last hauling himself over the edge of the cliff with a sobbing breath of relief.

"Ah…._blast it,"_ he moaned again, on hands and knees. The world spun. The little girl somersaulted off his shoulders and curled in a hysterical ball on the soft grass, crying and clutching her sides, overcome with childish emotion.

After a while, when they had both recovered, he took her hand and led her back down the narrow trail to the village, she taking her tiny baby-steps beside his weary, half-staggering ones.

It took them a long time to reach home.

* * *

><p><em>How far, how far to Saleucamai? As far, as far as you can fly. I cannot fly to Saleucamai. Then fly away, you pesky fly. –nursery rhyme (unknown origin)<em>

Satine sat with the girl's distracted mother, and the equally distracted knot of aunts and grandmothers and cousins which gathered about them. The poor Nautolan woman sobbed and moaned, holding her head in her hands and rocking back and forth in distress. The sun was setting, casting the long jungle shadows over the village. Seabirds wheeled and called overhead overhead, and the scudding clouds sailed away on some secret errand of their own.

The fishermen returned, in groups of two or three, their shoulders slumping and their baskets empty. Wives and sisters rushed to meet them, exclaiming over the day's bad luck, over the loss of the small girl. Soon the whole village was full of shouting and quick murmurs. A posse of the younger menfolk determined to spread out over the island, looking for the girl. Some gathered up spears and bows; others shooed the children into their homes.

Into this scene of disorder, the northern expedition party unexpectedly returned. Qui Gon and his half-dozen chosen companions entered the square from the mountainside, the Nautolans' faces transforming from elation to alarm as they registered the chaos and distress swirling around them.

"Where is Obi Wan?" the Jedi master quietly demanded, his eyes sweeping over the gathered villagers and immediately noting the absence of his Padawan.

"He went to find the missing girl," Satine told him. "He has been gone for hours now…"

Qui Gon spun round, head snapping toward the beach, where the fishermen still labored to pull their long boats onto the shore for the night. Further down the coast, a pair of silhouetted figures approached – a small one and a larger one, holding hands. When they had come nearer the village, the small one broke away and dashed madly down the sand strip, calling out in Nautolan. The mother of the missing girl shouted something out and rushed to meet her, folding her in an ecstatic embrace halfway along the beach. The villagers gathered about, clapping and sighing and jabbering away in their own language, asking questions of the child and giving advice to her mother. The girl pointed repeatedly over her shoulder to Obi Wan, who slowly trudged the rest of the way up the sandy shore and stopped a short distance from the milling crowd, swaying where he stood.

Satine and Qui Gon rushed to his side. "Are you injured?" the tall Jedi asked.

He shook his head, too exhausted to speak.

"Come," Satine said gently, overcome with a sudden mixture of tenderness and pride. "You need to rest." She pulled him away, toward the square and the low-roofed veranda of Muma's rambling dwelling.

They had not limped a handful of paces forward before she came to a halt. Yervei Adah was striding down the center of the village, a furious light in his eyes. He swept past the Duchess and the young Jedi contemptuously and accosted Qui Gon, ignoring the awe-struck Nautolans and the quiet wide-eyed stares of the children who peeped out of doorways.

"What have you done, Qui Gon Jinn?" he roared.

"I have done what seemed best to me," the Jedi master answered, standing his ground. "These people need help. Their existence and way of life is threatened. We explored the polar regions, to see what has been transpiring in the north."

Adah glowered, his balck eyes flashing with barely contained wrath. "You have taken them in your ship. I saw you return. It is explicitly against the precepts to interfere so radically in a native population's affairs," he growled. "Even the Council knows better than to permit such outrages."

"Interference?" Qui Gon repeated mildly, raising one eyebrow. "I have offered only assistance. And that is something I am oath-sworn to give."

"You arrogant fool!" Adah snapped at him, casting a furious glance over the few Nautolans daring enough to watch the confrontation. "You have destroyed the balance of this people's life ways. You – you and your Padawan there – the damage you have done in two days will last for generations. I helped you becasue you appealed to my weaker nature. And you repay me by destroying what I have worked so hard to create and maintain. You are no _peacekeepers. _You are men of destruction and spite. Leave this world at once. Take that woman with you and go. You are no longer welcome here."

Qui Gon drew himself up to his full impressive height. "This planet does not belong to you, Yervei Adah. Nor do these people. I will do what they request. That is our way, or have you forgotten what it means to be a Jedi?"

Adah regarded him with cold contempt. He turned to the Nautolans. "These liars and bringers of suffering are not friends of mine," he called out in a carrying voice. "Do you hear, people of the Kumaji? They will bring you nothing but confusion and strife. They are destroyers of the great balance! Expel them from your village and your lives, if you love peace."

With these condemning words he swept round again and stalked away, passing with great speed back up the mountainside, not looking back.

Stunned silence lingered on the shores after his departure.

"We shall sit in council about this," Kor decided heavily. "Ke Gon, I am sorry, but we must consider the words of Ke Adah. He has been a wise guide to us for generations."

Qui Gon nodded. "You will choose well," he said quietly. "Let true wisdom be your guide." He left the circle of Nautolans and took his Padawan's other arm. "Let us retire," he suggested. "The Kumaji will not be so foolish as to heed Adah's words."

The sun dipped beneath the horizon, blanketing the island in darkness, as they slowly made their way back to the house's cool shelter.


	8. Chapter 8

**On Distant Shores (VIII**)

_A Jedi is always on the move. This is especially convenient when he finds his presence is no longer desired. –Jedi Master Ki Adi Mundi, to a class of new Padawans_.

"I am sorry, Ke Gon, but the council has decided. It has taken all these hours to reach an agreement. I hope you will not leave here with anger in your heart."

Qui Gon Jinn made a small bow to the tall Nautolan chieftain. Kor's wife, Muma, lingered in the doorway behind him, silhouetted by moonlight from the arcaded walkway. "Do not fear," the Jedi told them. "Anger is not our way. I understand your people's concern, and I offer you thanks for your hospitality, and your patience."

Ke Muma took a step forward. "I send these gifts with you. The women of the Kumaji wish Ke Wan a fast recovery, so you may return to the stars as you wish." She proferred a small bundle, which Satine silently accepted.

Kor placed a hand over his heart. "What you have shown us, Ke Gon, and your friendship, we shall not forget," he said. "I am sorrowed by this parting."

"As are we," the Jedi responded gravely.

"Go now, " Kor urged him. "There is time to depart before the dawn light – and Tip is waiting for you." He sadly withdrew, taking the mournful Ke-Muma with him. Their footfalls whispered down the matted hall outside and disappeared.

Qui Gon turned and gently shook awake his apprentice, lying on the _hami_ in the back room. "We're leaving," he said in a hushed tone.

Obi Wan rolled blearily to his feet. The adventure with the giant carrpi and the tiny Nautolan girl had taxed him severely. He looked pale and drawn again. "Off world?"he asked. "The Nautolans have yielded to Adah's wishes."

"Not exactly," Qui Gon explained. "They have asked us to leave the island. But Kor, as village chieftain, has exercised his personal discretion and offered us another shelter. There is a small island close by, on which he has advised us to make a temporary refuge. There we shall stay until we are ready to leave the system."

"We should leave now," Obi Wan objected. "I can-"

"No," the Jedi master said firmly. "The moment we leave, we are in danger again. We will accept this time of rest, and we will make the best use of it. All of us." He smiled. "Besides, Tip is eager to spend some time in our company."

"Tip?" the Padawan repeated, non-plussed. "Are they sending him into exile, also?"

"He will accompany us. It is their custom; sending away guests without a guide is considered extremely rude. And I suspect that his family was glad to allow him his freedom for a while. He is quite the handful. He knows the way back to this island by sea when the time comes for us to depart altogether."

Obi Wan shrugged and clipped his lightsaber at his belt. "Well, then. I'm packed."

* * *

><p><em>It is so difficult to say what one truly means. And so seldom profitable – Senator Palpatine, on the tribulations of political life<em>

The new island lay only just over the horizon, a swift journey by shuttle from the Kumaji's home. The last lonely spur of the long archipelago, its far end swept up above the glittering sea like the prow of some enormous boat. Waves crashed against its feet in a perpetual siege. On the western end, the land sloped down in one continuous green swath to a broad beach. A tall aoli grove, bent and twisted by the ceaseless wind, occupied the island's center, and only the native seabirds made their homes on the lonely refuge, nesting in the eastern cliff face above the pounding waves.

They set their ship down above the western beach, converting the hold to a simple shelter against the gusting and unpredictable rain showers which swept over the sea several times each day. Tip wasted no time, but set to digging a traditional Nautolan fire pit, starting the rocks to heat, and launching his small boat into the ocean, insisting that his lazy student Ke Gon accompany him on a fishing trip.

"These waters not so good for nets. No small fins to catch. But maybe Ke Gon you will help me lure a deep-fin. To eat that for a week or more we could. I will teach you, if you listen and don't give me lip."

"That will be a challenge, ke-ma, " the Jedi snorted. "But I will be happy to learn from your wisdom."

They departed at a swift clip, Qui Gon putting his broad back into the rowing while Tip directed him from the stern. Soon they had disappeared into the glassy, sun-spattered waves. Satine watched them from the makeshift campsite and then returned to the interior of the shuttle. Obi Wan sat in the cockpit, examining the holomap of Merrid Altus' polar regions.

"I do not understand why Adah was so infuriated with Master Jinn," she said, addressing his back.

The blue image shifted and rearranged itself as Obi Wan adjusted the projector's controls. "Adah is like no other Jedi I have ever met. He thinks that showing the Nautolans our ship has somehow damaged them. His view of balance is strange to me. He holds that action is contrary to balance, while we hold that action is needed to maintain and restore balance. Those who feel the Force have a responsibility to channel it …to serve the rest of the galaxy. He says that the Jedi are merely born to contemplate and teach."

"He says that the Jedi have departed from their Order's original purpose," she cautiously replied. "That your view of action leads inevitably to conflict and violence. Can you truly deny that is so?"

He swiveled round to regard her closely. "Imbalance - not action - leads to conflict and violence. You of all people should know this."

Her back stiffened. "I do know this. And I shall meet it with peace, not more fighting. There is no use pouring on more fire to smother a fire. When I return to Mandalore, there shall be no war to end the wars, no more killing to end the slaughter."

"That is a pretty fantasy, Duchess."

His eyes glimmered with challenge, with battle. Conceited, impudent Jedi. She stepped closer, undaunted. "That is a _promise,_" she countered. "More sacred than your frivolous oaths of service and honor, your devotion to petty squabbles in the name of justice."

Now he stood, rising up to meet her like the waves that smashed against the eastern cliffs. His eyes burned into hers; outrage tightened his features. "You know nothing of Jedi honor," he warned her, his voice dropping to a lovely, sonorous growl.

She moved closer still, defiant. "No," she murmured coldly. "I have not yet seen it."

They stood, faces a hand-width apart, locked in furious opposition. The insult shimmered hot between them, the only barrier between this place of impasse and the deadly vista of the unsaid. Satine's heart hammered against her ribs. Hateful, hateful man.

"Your ladyship is too kind," he gritted out, acerbic as always.. The bitter sting lanced across the space between them, widened the gap, whipped the unsaid into submission. It whimpered and fled, dispelled like a flock of startled sea birds.

She stepped back a pace, giddy, relieved. Insufferable, obnoxious _boy._ She was his elder, his superior in station. How dare he treat her with such disrespect? How dare he continue to _look_ at her, unrepentant, unafraid, uncaring whether she hated him or not?

The ship was far too stuffy and close. She trounced down the ramp back to the shoreline's tranquil reaches, and steadied her uneasy mind with its placid morning beauty. Master Jinn and their Nautolan guide had only just left… yet she could not wait for their return.

* * *

><p><em>Good fire, good food, good friends. Desire nothing more and you will be happy. –Nautolan folk saying<em>

Tip Halleh was more than proud of the day's catch. He was boastful. Under pristine starlight, in the comfort of the small fire's warm circle, he let his tongue run loose, recounting every detail of the long day's hunt for longfin. Qui Gon leaned back on his elbows, his long legs stretched out before him, and watched in silent amusement as the enthusiastic Nautolan bragged about their exploits to his heart's content. It was fortunate that the other members of the audience – the Duchess and Qui Gon's Padawan – were full of hot food, and manifestly in the mood for a distraction. Tip found his listeners inclined to be tolerant, and took full advantage of the fact.

"So then," he expounded, spreading his arms wide. "We saw this fin rise above the waves. So big I thought it might be a whaladon but Ke Gon he is saying that it is the wrong shape, and he is right. We chase this fin so far that we are getting sore arms from all the rowing." Here he paused, quailing a little under Qui Gons' stern regard. "Well, Ke Gon is getting sore arms from all the rowing. And there is another island – out so far, eighteen or nineteen _ro-kirri_ from here. This rock is covered in carrpi, so many that it looks like the rock is moving itself. And the big-fin, he is not stupid. He doubles back toward us, jumping out of the waves he is so scared. And as he jumps, so! I throw the spear and –" He paused again, as the Jedi master raised a single eyebrow. "Well, Ke Gon throws a spear also and one of us hits the fish. He is so heavy that he is hard to lift into the boat. Do you wish to hear the _amazing_ part?"

Satine, smiling at the comical account, gestured for him to continue. "But of course," she assured him, all courtly graciousness.

"The amazing part: we cannot lift this big fin over the side without falling in, you see? So Ke Gon, he lifts the fish out of the water without touching. Like so." Here Tip indulged in an impromptu charade of the Jedi using the Force to land the fish inside the narrow canoe. He closed his enormous eyes and wriggled his long green fingers in a dramatic stage-magician's flourish.

"Ah, yes. A marvelous imitation. I've seen him do just that, many times." Obi Wan shot his mentor a brief, insolent smile.

"I am having a Jedi to fish with me every day," Tip announced, flopping down on the sand and warming his hands at the fire. "Except the days I am going to the stars to fish. You will come with me then also, Ke Gon, yes?"

Obi Wan stirred and directed a far more sober, unsettled look at the Jedi master. Qui Gon pretended not to notice.

"I hope you someday have an opportunity, Tip," he replied. "Though I must warn you the fishing up there is not very good."

"What about you, Ke Wan? Maybe you will fish with me tomorrow. I will teach you all the ways of my knowledge."

"A generous offer," Qui Gon said before the young Jedi could answer. "However, I think this will suffice for at least three days. You are not supplying a whole village now, Tip…unless you count your own appetite."

The pert young Nautolan only grinned and helped himself to a fourth serving of roasted longfin rolled in seaweed, a traditional Nautolan recipe. He ate with relish, licking his fingers and smiling widely in between huge mouthfuls.

"I should like to swim tomorrow, Tip," Obi Wan said. "Perhaps you will race me."

Tip swallowed, choking on his laughter. "Race? You will be _squashed_ by me, Ke Wan. I will go prella slow to let you keep up, though," he added teasingly. "I know! We will practice the _to mana kiro_. When I am ready to be a man, then I will prove my strength in three tests. One of these is to swim around the whole island at home. We can practice on this small one." His grin broadened. "Unless you are not man enough to face such a prella hard ordeal?"

"Oh, I don't know," the Padawan replied dryly. "I've already endured your storytelling without begging for mercy."

"Is that wise?" Qui Gon asked his apprentice, in a pointed undertone.

"I _think_ I can rise to the occasion." Obi Wan growled back, unwilling to have the same repetitive argument yet again. He glared at the fire, avoiding Qui Gon's worried gaze.

Satine stood, sensing the tension between the two Jedi. "If that is the plan," she stated diplomatically, "Then you two will need your rest. I suggest we retire."


	9. Chapter 9

**On Distant Shores (IX)**

_Every adventure is worth the undertaking – even the ones that don't go as planned. – Qui Gon Jinn, to Obi Wan Kenobi_

Tip roused him early, before dawn had broken over Merrid Altus' flat horizon. "Wake up, Ke Wan, wake up. Swim time is now. Tide is flat. Good for fast going. Come, come, come."

Obi Wan opened one gritty eye and regarded the excited Nautolan boy balefully. Why in the Force's name had he agreed to swim the island's perimeter? Groaning silently as he pushed himself upright and stretched his aching, stiff back and shoulders, he wondered if he might not be pushing a little too hard after all. But if he didn't push his body to recover, to regain its customary strength, he felt he might never heal. He would be a cripple, less than himself, a useless Jedi – unable to serve, unable to protect. And that was unacceptable.

Spurred to full wakefulness, full of half-angry resentment at his nerves and muscles for being so treacherously weak, so vulnerable and frail, he carefully placed his lightsaber by Qui Gon's right hand. The Jedi master was still asleep, serenely resting on his back at the foot of the ship's boarding ramp, guarding the entrance to Satine's assigned resting place. Then he followed Tip down to the water's edge, their feet crunching loudly in the absolute quiet of morning.

"Okay," Tip cheerfully instructed him, stripping down to a sort of loincloth and binding his headtails together with a thick leather thong. "We go past the breakers, yes? And then we head around this way –" he pointed north. "Because the current will carry us. You go first and I go behind. If you get tired, you head into shore and I will see you and come also. Yes?"

Obi Wan nodded, tossing his tunic onto a pile with boots and belt. He shivered violently as the cold air touched his skin. The sun peeped over the horizon and set the dark waves on fire, painting a rippling path of gold across the sea's expanse. The sky glowed a majestic orange.

Tip hollered something in Nautolan and dashed headlong into the water, gracefully disappearing under the first small breaker and coming up on its far side. One of his arms waved madly back and forth, in summons. Obi Wan drew in a deep breath, centering himself in the Force. Strength. Wholeness. He exhaled, and then plunged into the waves after Tip, gasping as he came up for air behind the first breakers. The ocean was so cold it seemed to claw at his body, squeezing breath away and wrapping him in icy pain. He fought it, and started swimming – it took a powerful, fast stroke to keep up with Tip. He had to work hard to catch and then surpass the young Nautolans' position.

"Well done!" the boy shouted at him as he splashed past. "Keep going! Go, go! Maybe you will prove you are a man of the tribe today! Ha ha ha ha ha !

Obi Wan snorted water out of his nose and mouth. A man of the tribe? He would be satisfied if he could make it around the island and drag himself back to the campfire without actually crawling there on hands and knees. Anything less than _that…_ well, Qui Gon would never let him hear the end of it. He put his whole self into the swim, cutting through the freezing water as fast as he could, stretching every muscle to its limit, gulping in deep, painful breaths that pushed renewed life into every cell, focusing on nothing but the endless flow and surge of the tide below and around him, the Force through and inside him. he floated in its light, borrowed its strength, its limitless peace…

It was halfway around the island that he realized he was in trouble. Without warning, his concentration slipped and shattered, and his breath came short. The act of raising an arm over his head pulled his whole back into a spasm, a tight cramping seizure that paralyzed his limbs and lungs. Fighting free of the cramp – which hurt even worse –he stopped, treading water, panting shallowly. The swell of the waves knocked clean, salty water into his eyes. He squinted through stinging tears. They were far from shore, though he could see the high promontory of the western cliff looming over them.

Tip caught up to him easily. "You okay, Ke Wan?"

"No," he admitted. "I had better go in." He felt another wave of tightness shudder over his back, and fought to keep his legs moving. He started stroking toward the shore, only to go under as the cramp seized his back from neck to tailbone, pulling every muscle into rigid agony.

Tip grabbed him and yanked his head above the surface. "Oh, that's bad," he said, his round opal eyes blinking in concern. "Okay – no worries. You don't have to be a man of the tribe today. Not a worry." He deftly pulled Obi Wan's arms around his own neck and paddled for shore, as agile in the waves as the longfin he had praised so fulsomely the previous night.

When they made it to land, under the shadow of the jutting cliff face, Obi Wan dragged himself out of the water and rolled onto the stony, narrow spit of beach.

"You better rest fast, Ke Wan," Tip informed him, standing on a boulder and peering out to sea with one hand shading his eyes. "When the tide comes in here, there's no beach at all. And maybe you don't feel like a climb right now, I guess?"

Obi Wan tilted his head to the side and peered up the sheer rock face, and then at the white foam rushing up the shore. Lovely. Climb or be smashed against the wall. Or keep swimming. The surf hissed and bubbled at his limbs, already washing over the rocks on which he lay. Every surface was covered in slime and dotted with small sea creatures. A few even squelched beneath his back right now…but he was too exhausted to care.

His back spasmed again, and he clenched his jaw against the intense pain. He could almost hear Qui Gon's voice: _is that wise?_

"No, master, it wasn't wise," he answered aloud, closing his eyes as the cramp worked its way up his back. At least this one wasn't as bad. Possibly he could work past this, keep going. He summoned the Force, focused on its nurturing power. He willed his disobedient body to stop its rioting and relax. Gradually, feeling returned to his shoulders and legs as the spasm subsided. He scrabbled his way onto his feet, dully aware that he was numb with cold, too, despite the hard exercise.

"Ke Wan! You ready?" Tip asked anxiously. "I think we need to go from here, prella fast!" He pointed up the rapidly dwindling shoreline beneath the cliff.

A ragged army of gargantuan carrpi marched along the stones, hungrily closing in on them. Obi Wan's hand went instinctively to his saber hilt - but the weapon wasn't there.

He pushed all thought of weakness out of his mind. "Go, Tip!" he shouted. "Swim!"

* * *

><p><em>An adventure that went as planned? What is that, master? –Obi Wan Kenobi, to Qui Gon Jinn<em>

Tip Haaleh was a fantastic swimmer, or he would never have made it back past the breakers and into deep water before the carrpi reached him. The gigantic shelled creatures crawled the ocean floor and seldom bothered with things that floated on its surface, content to trawl the shallows and the reef areas where prey was abundant and easy to catch. Obi Wan watched the Nautolan go, glancing sideways out to sea every few seconds as he clambered carefully up the boulders at the cliff's foot, seeking high ground. The hardshells swelled round him, a frenzy of claws and waving limbs, like a shrieking crowd mobbing some popular musician at one of Coruscant's less civilized entertainment venues.

He spotted Tip's headtails bobbing offshore, headed back along the coast again, flowing with the strong current that curved round the island's long contours. And then he couldn't look at Tip anymore. The nearest carrpi was a massive specimen. Its eye stalks alone were each the size of a colfillini plant, and its body would have made a fine rival for a heavy air taxi. Its claws bashed competitors to the sides carelessly, as though batting away pesky flies. It even crushed a much smaller hardshell between the serrated teeth of its larger claw and tossed it aside to be trampled by its companions.

The young Jedi jumped, following the prompting of instinct, and landed on the back of this intimidating monster. His bare feet slid on the smooth, slime coated curve of its carapace, but he seized oone eye stalk in each hand and crouched directly between them, holding fast. The claws waved and grappled, swung and snapped but could not quite reach his hiding place. The eye stalks writhed and twisted in his grip, but he called on the Force and clung to them with superior strength.

Enraged and confused, the giant carrpi began a mad dance to escape, swarming along the beach in a savage sprint of irritation, pursued by its hungry mates, all of whom wished to have a chance at the prey perched so tantalizingly on its back. The giant, perceiving in its dim and belligerent manner that the others were now attacking it, fought back with explosive ferocity. Cracked shells and severed legs went flying. Claws were crushed, backs smashed, heads punctured. The massive hardshell showed no mercy, and eventually drove the swarm back into the surf as it rounded the edge of the cliffs and headed onto the tumbling rocks that lined them, where the land began sloping down to a flat beach again.

Here it s efforts to dislodge the pest became more strenuous. At last, in its boundless rage, the beast managed to flip itself over onto its back. Obi Wan jumped clear, landing on a great tussock of succulent plant and sliding halfway down its dune hill. He rolled upright, stumbled a little on the uneven footing, and spat sand from his mouth and nose. But the hardshell, like its smaller cousins, could not easily right itself on land. It thrashed and rocked and jittered, all in vain. It lay upside down, its gleaming white undershell reflecting the morning sun, legs clacking against its own shell as it struggled.

Obi Wan set off as fast as he could; he had no desire to see just how long it would take the creature to regainits feet. He jogged up the beach, to its fringe of sparse grasses, and made his way along the coast, slowing to a walk as the miles dragged by. After a while, a wet and jubilant Tip rejoined him.

"I saw the whole thing!" he exclaimed. "You were brilliant, Ke Wan. How did you flip that _shorkitzu_ hardshell over like that? You are one prella wicked warrior, friend."

Obi Wan trudged along beside him, back now throbbing dully with each step, sending a little thrill of agony down each leg in turn. "I think I was lucky not to have been crushed beneath it," he corrected the young Nautolan.

"There's our camp!" Tip shouted, pointing to a speck down the coast. "We made it! All the way around mostly. That's a good start for me. Maybe I will take the trials of manhood early, yes? I am almost ready. I will run ahead and tell them the good news, okay? Get some food going. You just walk easy, now." And he was off, sprinting across the land at his easy, loping runner's gait.

Obi Wan watched him go, an unbecoming envy stirring in his mind. He finished the rest of the trek one painful step at a time, far more slowly and less elegantly than his companion, who had arrived back and was already eating a pile of flatbread rations sent by his Muma as a precaution against the unlikely event of starvation. Qui Gon sat with him, near the small smouldering fire, quietly watching his Padawan's halting progress to the camp.

"Tip tells me you made it halfway around the island," he said neutrally as Obi Wan shuffled forward to the fire.

The Padawan lowered himself to the ground, keeping his face blank as he fought his back inch by inch all the way down. "It was invigorating," he replied flatly, having achieved the small private victory.

"Do you plan to swim the whole perimeter tomorrow?"the Jedi master asked, all polite indifference.

"Oh yes!"Tip supplied between mouthfuls. "Tomorrow will be much better. Ke Wan will not have the same problem with the swimming, and the hardshells. We know how to deal with them now. Smack!" He clapped his hand upside down on his thigh and wriggled the fingers frantically, like a stranded carrpi.

Qui Gon smiled, humorlessly, and studied his Padawan. Obi Wan could feel the tall Jedi's searching gaze cut clean through his affected calm, reading him as easily as a holoboard in the Lichii district. "Is that how you deal with a stubborn hard shell, Tip?" he asked, eyes never leaving his apprentice.

"Oh, yes," their adolescent guide informed him, chest puffing out with the pride of expertise. "You teach it a prella bad lesson. Smack! Onto the back it goes, and it doesn't get up until it learns to behave itself. Smack! Smack! Smack!" Tip was so engrossed in the humor of his narrative that he did not notice the arrival of Satine, who stopped to watch him with wide blue eyes, arrested in the act of carrying a steaming _torchu_ tea gourd to the fire.

"I see," Qui Gon said. "I shall remember your advice, Tip."

The Nautolan boy helped serve the traditional tea, handing round the shallow bowls and chanting the words of blessing over them.

Qui Gon took a long, meditative sip of the fragrant tea. "Since you are recovering so quickly, Obi Wan," he said, "I think we should meet at sunset for saber drills."

"That is a good sign," Satine smiled encouragingly, when there was no immediate answer forthcoming. She looked curiously from one Jedi to the other, seeing only severely controlled expressions on either man's face. "Is it not?"

"Oh yes," Tip hummed. "And maybe I shall watch, Ke Gon?"

The Jedi master set down his cup very deliberately. "No, I'm sorry, Tip. I think this first training session should be private."

Obi Wan closed his eyes briefly, understanding Qui Gon's meaning all too well.


	10. Chapter 10

**On Distant Shores (X)**

_One master shall take one Padawan, and raise him from child to manhood; failing neither to nurture his wisdom and virtues, nor to correct his faults. Let the student heed his master's counsel, obey his mandates, and accept his rebuke with gratitude. – from the Enchiridion Ilumis (commentary on the Precepts of the Jedi Order)_

Sunsets were a ritual, one oft observed but never repeated, for each sun and each world were different, each moment in time a disparate note in the infinite polyphony of the Force. Here on Merrid Altus, on this day, at this hour, at this high vantage point overlooking the glassy sea, sunset was an act of quiet humility; the fire-crowned star dipped its head in obeisance and cast off its crown into the boundless waters, where it shattered and sparkled in a million scintillating shards. The sky overhead blushed red and pink, and the few clouds drew a modest veil over the watching stars.

For a long time the two Jedi knelt, side by side, saying nothing. The sun quietly completed its self-immolation in the dark waters, and the sky flamed a more brilliant red, bathing them in a lingering twilit warmth. Sea birds cried and circled down to their stone-buttressed roosts, and the ocean sent a soft breath of moisture up over the high cliffs, a long sigh of contentment and peace.

At last Qui Gon broke the silence. "How long has it been, Obi Wan? A full year?"

The young Jedi nodded, quietly. This mission…this hiatus without beginning or end. It had been a year, and a lifetime, since they had first arrived on Mandalore, to protect the Duchess.

"We have not had sufficient time to speak as we ought," Qui Gon observed. "This mission has, I fear, interrupted your training."

Again Obi Wan nodded. Seldom were they alone now, seldom without the Duchess close at hand. Just when Qui Gon's guidance was most needed, this interminable distraction isolated them, even in the Force.

"However," the Jedi master said, regretful but firm, "That does not excuse me from my duty. You have strayed from the path, Padawan."

"Yes, master." The words were too small to hold their proper meaning. He owed Qui Gon Jinn everything, in some sense: the Jedi master had taken him as apprentice when it seemed no one else would; had taught and protected him in his youth, been friend and mentor in latter years. Qui Gon had risked the Council's displeasure on his behalf, accepted him back after he had brashly abandoned the Order on Melidaa/Daan, had patiently endured his Padawan's sharp tongue, melancholic turns of mood, occasional resentment and rebellion. Qui Gon had poured all his own wisdom, patience, and compassion into the duty of teaching. There was _nothing _Obi Wan would not do to be worthy of this man's respect, no promise he would fail to make and fulfill. And the knowledge that he had now earned a reprimand from the tall, gentle master settled like a leaden weight in his chest and limbs. He remained silent, head bowed, a dull sorrow constricting his throat.

"I do not relish these occasions any more than you do, " the Jedi master continued. "I am grateful that they have been so very few in number."

"Yes, master."

A flicker of dry amusement eddied in the Force. "Of course," Qui Gon added philosophically, "You do seem to compensate for a lack of quantity with sheer outrageous originality and intensity."

Obi Wan flinched. "I try, master," he said, grasping at the feeble ray of humor.

"There is no try. Now tell me why we are here."

Of course Qui Gon would not make it easy. The young Jedi watched the last seabirds lightly sail homeward on the motionless breeze. "My impatience to be healed is unbecoming and dangerous," he said, after a long silence. The words sounded odd, a condemnation from his own lips. He inwardly writhed at the truth of them.

"Good," Qui Gon nodded, his voice level and detached. "Whence does it spring?"

More difficult still. The answer was locked away in the realm of the unsaid. It could not be uttered. Obi Wan remained silent.

The tall man sighed, his grey eyes gazing over the horizon, or perhaps through it, into the numinous. "If you do not understand this passion's' roots, then you cannot overcome it. And in that case, I must do what is necessary to guarantee the success of this mission and your safety."

The Padawan's hands tightened on his knees. And now the consequence, which he must accept.

"I should send you back to Coruscant, while I continue this assignment alone. It seems to be the only way to preserve the Duchess' safety and assure that you do in fact recover without damaging yourself further. The healers at the Temple will see to the latter, while I attend to the former."

No. No. No. Absolutely not. It was only a lifetime of hard-won discipline that prevented him from pleading and begging like a distraught child. And yet he could not possibly accept the decision. Defiance and obedience both promised disaster. Obi Wan turned to Qui Gon, willing him to lift the sentence, dissolve the terrible, racking dilemma. "Master…"

Qui Gon's regard was softened by pity, but his adamant will did not bend in the least. "Have you another solution?"

"Let me continue the mission. I won't fail. I won't defy your wishes. I will be patient."

"Obi Wan." The master's tone was sharp, a warning. "Why does this mission matter so much to you? What lies behind your distraction and disobedience? If you cannot answer me, I can - and will." He hesitated, inviting a reply, but received only a deepening scowl in return. "The Duchess," he said, eyes locked on his apprentice's.

"The Duchess has nothing to do with this."

"That lie ill becomes you, Padawan."

Obi Wan surged to his feet. "Forgive me," he snapped, feeling a shuddering wave of vertigo at the harsh, accusing words. They bit deep, a burning gash across his tenuous balance. The said and the unsaid bled together, perilously. Qui Gon did not know what he did; what agony of effort it had taken to separate these two realms, and to keep them apart; what terrifying possibilities loomed on the horizon, held back only by this thin barrier of reserve.

Qui Gon also rose to his feet. "We will speak of this later, when you have mastered yourself," he said sternly. And turning his back, he strode back down the long slope to the distant shore.

* * *

><p><em>Mandalore abounds in strength – our people possess a surfeit of strength, like an overgrown plant. But, my daughter, take care: if ever you give away your heart, let it not be to sheer strength, but to strength tempered by wisdom. – Lady Melia Kryze, before her death, in a letter to Satine Kryze.<em>

Qui Gon Jinn appeared back at the campsite an hour later, his face carved deeply in grooves of weariness. Satine stood to greet him, but the tall man's presence rolled over her like a passing thundercloud, and she fell silent.

Tip Haaleh, however, was impervious to such subtleties. "Where is Ke Wan?" he inquired cheerfully. "He did not fall over the cliff into the sea I am hoping. It is dark and cold to be rescuing anybody, I think."

"He will be fine," Qui Gon curtly replied, nodding once and then departing again, striding down the far beach, his long hair silvered in the moonlight, his bearing a palpable warning to keep distance.

Satine laid a restraining hand on the young Nautolans' arm. "Why don't you rest, Tip?" she suggested, pointedly. "The Jedi's affairs are their own."

But when Tip had rolled into his woven sleeping blanket and settled his fabulously adorned head down to sleep by the fire, she cautiously slipped out of its glowing circle and ascended the island's long slope, crossing the wide sweep of windswept grass, into the aoli grove, and between its colonnaded trunks onto the stony plateau overlooking the sea.

Obi Wan knelt alone, overlooking the black sea, a moving mirror in which scattered stars idly hovered, seeming to float illusive beneath the dark surface. She approached slowly, and sank onto the sandy earth beside him, one hand questing over his cheek. Her searching fingers found moisture there, and softly brushed it away.

"What has happened?" she whispered.

"Satine," he sighed, imbuing her name with a world of sorrow. "I am sorry. I am not… I will not be able to continue on this mission. I must go back to Coruscant alone. Qui Gon will stay with you – he will protect you."

Her stunned mind was slow to respond. "What?"

One of his hands came up to encircle hers, the calloused fingertips brushing over smooth skin. "I can no longer serve you. I have failed. I am broken."

She pulled away, alarmed, disbelieving. "You are…leaving? You are giving up?" Fear rose within her, thunderous like the tide that beat distant beneath them. Anger rode its crest, wild and unbridled. "That is not worthy of a Jedi!"

His temper flared, too, sorrow instantly kindled to fury by the power of her word. A single phrase dropped form hr lips, and his spirit rose to meet her anger, two thranctills soaring on a single shimmering wind. What gave her word such power?

"Duchess," he said coldly. "It would be unworthy of me to endanger you further by staying. I have done everything in my power to recover - but I have failed. I am broken. I cannot serve you any longer."

"That is unacceptable." Satine brought her head up. "I forbid you to abandon your duty."

"You have no authority over me!"

But they both knew it was a lie. She had impossible, terrifying authority. Her word alone held as much power as the saber at his belt; her merest breath the potential to lay waste a principality. She stood, dizzy, on the brink of this precipice, on the teetering edge of the unspoken.

"You arrogant nosski," she scoffed. "Listen to me, Obi Wan Kenobi. You will _not_ abandon your duty. You will _accept _your injury and you _will _find a way to recover. Perhaps it is your contemptible Jedi pride which stands in the way of healing. Why cannot you humble yourself enough to accept your master's advice and your friends help?"

He turned to her, wordless. And she led him away, captive to her word.


	11. Chapter 11

**On Distant Shores (XI)**

_The Force: many things does it show us. What is, what has been, what might be. Never a nursemaid is it. – Master Yoda_

Satine slathered Ke-Muma's pungent salve over her patient's back. The thick amber ointment had the scent of hallah and something stronger, an acrid mineral. She wiped her burning fingers on the hem of her already filthy overblouse, and repeated the procedure, until she felt even the vigorous clan matriarch, had she been here, would have been satisfied with her work.

"It's not bacta," she remarked, stoppering the primitive ceramic bottle and returning it to its parcel. "But I suppose it's effective, or they wouldn't use it. Feel any better?" She washed her hands in clean water, noting that the Nautolan remedy had a strangely numbing effect.

"I can't _feel_ anything," Obi Wan complained. "It seems to be anesthetic."

"And is that so bad?" She dried her hands and admired the view. Obi Wan remained sitting on the cargo hold's bare deck, his back turned to her.

"No," he decided. "Just …curious. As though I have a hole in my middle. I'm not sure it's a pleasant sensation, but it's better than pain." He tilted his head contemplatively, more intrigued by the sensory lacuna than by the relief it provided.

She shook her head, replacing a wayward strand of hair behind one ear. Jedi culture apparently included an ingrained suspicion of all conventional medicine, technologically advanced or not. Imagine never taking a nerve blocker for headache because it might upset one's balance in the Force. She rummaged in Ke-Muma's bundle again and discovered a packet of herbs, ground fine in a soluble powder.

"Now what?" Obi Wan asked. "Are we finished?"

"Not quite. I think you are intended to take this, too. It looks like a tea." The opened packet exuded the heavy scent of chorysis, sweet and musty at once, subtly soporific.

"I don't require –"

"You require whatever I say you do," she cut him off imperiously, stirring the powder into not water and letting it steep.

He craned his head over one shoulder and fixed her with a one-eyed stare. She met his gaze unflinchingly, and held out the steaming mixture. "Drink," she ordered. "All of it."

With a sigh of resignation, he accepted the bowl and drained it in one long go, solemnly handing it back with a wordless grimace of displeasure.

"Now lie down; it's late." She set the supplies aside, dimmed the hold's emergency lights, glanced through the open hatchway to where Tip Haaleh lay snoring by the smouldering fire pit. The tide was audible, whispering against the smooth beach, lapping at its smooth edges, wearing them ever smoother, softer. Above, the moon sailed in a clear purple sky, and deathless stars burned. Somewhere, in one of those constellations, Mandalore's star shone down on ravaged satellites, a mother weeping over children locked in strife. She thought she could make out the tall silhouette of Qui Gon Jinn, far down the shoreline, his head lifted to the same stars, long hair drifting in the salt breeze.

She returned to the sanctuary of the shuttle's interior, and spread one of the Nautolan's rough-woven blankets over the sleeping Jedi. The scent of chorysis flowers still tinged the air, and her eyelids drooped. She found herself longing for the forgotten luxury of a hot bath, for food not roasted in its own fat over a smoking fire, for steel and stone and glass, for _civilization._ For sleep that was not riddled with nightmares, or dreams of unattainable bliss. She wondered what she would find if she ever again confronted a mirror: hollowed eyes and deep grooves of sorrow? Or hair bleached white by exile and loneliness? Or just her own face, scoured to an emotionless mask like the ones these Jedi so often affected?

"Duchess."

She started awake from the half-dream, her chin snapping upward and her hand jerking away from the young Jedi's hair, where it had long drifted of its own accord. Qui Gon Jinn stood framed in the hatchway.

"You should get some rest," the Jedi advised, his gentle tones nonetheless conveying a certain command. "I will stay here with Obi Wan." His eyes rested on her, pierced through her. "He is my responsibility."

"Of course," her voice replied, though her heart raged a loud and angry protest. She strode past the tall Jedi with exquisite dignity, feeling his gaze on her back as she descended the ramp and withdrew to the fire pit.

"Mmm?" Tip Haaleh murmured, as she savagely prodded the slumbering fire with a long branch. Sparks whirled in the cold air, fluttering shreds of her indignation. They flared and died, falling to ash upon the sand.

"I did not mean to wake you," she muttered.

"That is fine, Ke-Lady-tine. I am thinking the stars are _prella_ beautiful tonight." The Nautloan's wide black eyes reflected the heavenly sphere in miniature perfection. He pointed an arm up at a cluster of five. "That we call the seastar."

Satine glanced upward. "Glee Anselm is up there somewhere, " she remembered.

"Glee Anselm?" Tip's youthful face contorted into a frown. "What is this place?"

Satine's eyebrows rose in surprise. "Why, the native home of the Nautolan people," she answered. "You do not know of it? Your clan – at one time they must have come from thence. Your ancestors. You may still have relatives dwelling on that world."

Tip shook his head stubbornly. "We do not remember such a story. Ke Adah has told us another."

"Your history?" the Duchess replied, fascinated. "Let me hear it."

"My people were floating in the heavens before we came to the islands," Tip said simply. "We could not fish or swim in the skies, because they are dark and empty. We were lonely and starving. That is when Ke Adah found us. He found children of our people and brought them down to the world and set them on the island. Then he showed them how to live there, and when the young ones grew up, they took each other for _trothe_, and…that is my family. We are _prella _many now, of course. Ke Adah is ancient. That was many times ago."

"Adah found your people floating in the stars?" Satine murmured. "In the skies above?" She pointed to the darkened dome of the atmosphere, thinking of the scattered crown of junk which orbited the planet's equator, the mysterious debris field she had seen during their initial approach.

Tip nodded. "Yes, yes. And good, too. Lonely up there, isn't it? You are often lonely, Ke-Lady-tine. I think even your star people would like to come down to the world sometimes to eat and sleep, yes?"

She smiled and stirred at the failing fire's embers again. "Yes…perhaps he did you a great kindness."

Tip folded his hands behind his head and gazed tranquilly up at the distant points of fire, thinking perhaps of his lonely forebears, drifting aimlessly amid starlight until a rescuer appeared to save them.

* * *

><p>It was like an awful wedding of nightmare and Force vision – a clouded mirror in which truth and imaginary terror mingled, tangled together until he could no longer distinguish one from the other.<p>

He saw a ship shuddering out of hyperspace, crippled by a gravity mine. Impossible red birds of prey surrounded it, tearing it to pieces with talons and beaks. Their tongues unfurled into fiery whips and wrapped about its hull, punctured it. The ship broke apart, spilling bright entrails into space, and the birds pecked at its corpse, gorging themselves and leaving its shredded remains floating grotesquely about its skeleton.

The Force warped and shivered with the echoes of long-ago death, and he fought to escape the vision, or the dream…but he couldn't move. Part of him was missing, numb – the middle part, where breath and life were seated. Thrown off balance, he floundered and fell back into the dark charade.

Now children were crying: little bright tongues of fire in the bleak night. He wished desperately to help them, but he could do nothing. They were so tiny and helpless, and the ocean of cold black was so vast….then another ship appeared. This one was familiar. Its wing was emblazoned with the winged flame. As he studied the ancient symbol, the feathers of the wings curled and disappeared, transforming the open wings into a solid ring, a closed fist. The fist opened and reached out to pluck the crying children from the blackness.

And then he was falling alongside the new ship, the fist holding the children. They plunged through the atmosphere, down toward an endless sea. He burned as they fell, ion trails blazing around him. He tried to slow the plummeting descent, open wings to catch the wind, but they were pinioned to his sides. He struggled, thrashing wildly, but to no avail. As he burned and fell, he glimpsed the strange familiar ship gently settle on a tiny island, setting the children safely among the aoli trees. They had black eyes and many headtails, and they stood marveling on the shore.

The cold ocean depths swallowed him and sucked him down to the bottom, where the burning pain transformed to freezing cold. There was no light, but he could sense giant creatures crawling hungrily on the bottom. He could sense their hard shells, their mighty claws, their mindless waving eyes. He cried out voicelessly as they swelled to terrible sizes, glutting themselves on every living thing. A great horned one loomed over him in the inky, freezing dark, claws extended …except it was not a carrpi at all, it was a medical droid, and behind it marched an army not of crustaceans but of B'Omarr monks, their brain jars scraping hideously against the ocean floor…

"Obi Wan."

A voice spoke from the very water, from nowhere. He sought it, but the waters were stained darker now, blackness oozing with red, with bright blinding scarlet ..

"Obi Wan."

And another being, a vast animal with a tail that swept the creeping monks and the carrpi away in a single stroke, swept the ink and the crimson brain liquid out of the water, cleaning the sea of pollution. It brought its enormous eye close to him – an eye as large as a viewport. The brilliant silver stars were visible within its eye, behind its gaze. He grasped its hide, which was warm and yet smooth, made not of flesh but of golden light. And they rose, powerfully, effortlessly, to the surface, scattering the dark and cold to sharp painful fragments as they burst through the waves into the glorious clear of night, into the stars.

"Obi Wan." The whaladon's mellifluous, familiar voice was calling his name.

"Master." He opened his eyes. Qui Gon was here, leaning over him, gripping both his elbows tightly. "Master…where is the..?"

"The what?" Qui Gon released his grip, set the glowlamp to a soft ambience, held out a drinking canteen.

He rolled upright, drank deeply of the cool water, rested his aching head on his knees. "Nothing. A vision."

Qui Gon snorted softly. He held the emptied tea bowl under his nose and released a rueful chuckle. "Tea from Ke Muma? You didn't drink this, did you?" An affirming shrug from his apprentice confirmed his suspicion."Ah. That was probably unwise, for a Jedi." He set the cup down, gently.

A long minute passed in silence. "Qui Gon?"

The Jedi master raised his eyebrows at the unexpected use of his name, but said nothing.

"You were right. About the Duchess."

"Ah." Qui Gon shifted, resting his hands on his knees. "Let us speak of this now, while we have a private moment." He looked at his Padawan, so recently it seemed a boy like Tip Haaleh – and saw instead a young man, tired but determined. He saw wisdom thrusting its first painful shoots through soil tilled by hard experience. He saw the future, for the most fleeting of moments, and his heart constricted. A truly great Jedi knelt here before him, humbly asking his counsel. He must not fail to show the true path.

"I did not ask for this; I did not _desire_ it."

"I know that, Obi Wan. This is not something which can be chosen. Nor can it be avoided, always. It can only be…renounced, when the time comes."

"I will return to Coruscant if you send me," Obi Wan said. "I apologize for my outburst earlier today. It was inappropriate."

But Qui Gon shook his head softly. "I do not think that will be necessary; indeed, I do not think it would be prudent. I need your help. This mission has been exceedingly challenging, in many ways. When we return to Mandalore, those challenges will increase ten-fold."

"Yes, master. But.."

"I will not tell you what to do. I'm afraid that rests upon your shoulders. But be wary, Padawan. Your oath can exact a heavy price. Be sure you understand the extent of that promise."

"I do, master. I have sworn to lay down my life, if need be, to serve the will of the Force."

"Yes," Qui Gon said pointedly. "Your life. You need not die to fulfill that vow."

Their eyes met. "When the time comes," Qui Gon repeated gently, "You must choose as a Jedi. Let the Force be your guide. I can neither help nor hinder you in that moment."

Obi Wan swallowed, and nodded. Qui Gon laid a hand on his shoulder, feeling his chest tighten again with a strange pity, and an unaccustomed dread. There would be suffering in the future, no matter what path lay ahead, no matter what choice was made. Perhaps that was the trial, the test of strength, the final ordeal of the heart.

For a Jedi shall know not anger, nor hatred. Nor love.


	12. Chapter 12

**On Distant Shores (XII)**

_Truth is the most dangerous thing in the galaxy – Jedi proverb_

Morning found the two Jedi on the beach again, their weapons laid aside in favor of a more quiet, intense discipline. Barefoot, graceful, they moved in slow synchrony through all one hundred ten forms of the extended _alchaka_ meditations, keeping perfect balance and changing position as gradually as a heliotrope turning its adoring face to the sun. The only sound was the sea lapping against the shore.

Satine and Tip watched from a respectful distance, in silent wonder, as the exquisite demanding dance played itself out over the course of an hour or so. The shadows cast by the rising sun slowly shortened and the sky filled with a vibrant heraldry, soundless clarion cry of the day's beginning. A wind rose over the sea and blew a steady breath of warm, salty air over their upraised faces. Still the Jedi did not break concentration or cease, or even utter a word. They held the final position for three full minutes, then gradually relaxed into meditation posture, facing the surf.

"I think they are either _prella _wise of _prella_ crazy," Tip observed dispassionately.

"A little of both, I suppose," Satine replied quietly. "And perhaps there is little difference in the end."

"Well, then," Tip cheerfully decided. "I am not going to be wise. I would rather have breakfast. Come! Now the waves are ebbing.. Time for looking in the tidepools. My belly is empty and aching."

Satine pressed her lips together. How Tip's belly could be anything but full after his gluttonous indulgence at every meal, she could not imagine. She followed the energetic Nautolan over the wet sands and onto a jumble of loose rocks at the water's edge, watching as he scrambled over the slippery footholds, scrabbling between the cracks and crevices with long, nimble fingers. "Look!" he called. "We have found a treasure."

She followed him onto the loose shale and stones, and crouched down, peering into his outstretched palms. There lay a small pile of gleaming round eggs, each as large as a ripe wine berry. They were shot through with gold and green; their slick curves glinted with moisture.

"Carrpi eggs," Tip announced. "These must be early. Breeding season is starting only maybe a week ago. Delicious. We will feast this morning."

But the Duchess had another, less cheerful thought. "Tip," she said slowly. "If the carrpi lay eggs on the shore, do they not come onto land to breed? Do they not crowd all the shores and islands?"

"Oh yes," the boy informed her, greedily hunting for another clutch of the soft eggs. "They do in the season, every two or three years. It is about time now. They are piling all on top of each other in a wonderful funny way. Breeding grounds are dangerous – aggressive the hardshells can be, _prella_ bad news if you step on one."

"Or if it steps on you," she added.

Tip's face fell, realizing the problem at last. "Oh…" he moaned. "And the carrpi are so big these last seasons. Where will they all go?"

"Where indeed?" she mused. The uneasy thought stayed with her all the way back to the camp, and during the time it took Tip to roast the carrpi eggs on long skewers over the open flames. She distracted herself from her dark imaginings by preparing water for tea. Qui Gon Jinn drank a good quantity of the Nautolans' mild green tea every day, and it amused her to serve it the Jedi master as though they sat in a civilized tea house on a Core world rather than a windswept island on a remote uncharted world. It was a whimsical anchor to the past, to fading memory. Foolish, no doubt; but a comfort nonetheless.

"Ah," Tip sighed in delight, as he stuffed the first half dozen eggs in his mouth. "Mmmmmph."

The Jedi returned, strolling up the beach side by side, deep in conversation.

"And you dreamt all of this last night?" Qui Gon was asking.

"No, master – not exactly. The vision was disturbed, fragmented. But this morning's meditation clarified parts of its meaning. The pieces fell into place. I am sure of it."

"You have ever wandered out of the present moment, my Padawan…I fear you have seen the truth. And that complicates matters here."

They sat, while Tip Haaleh handed round skewers of hot carppi eggs, a beatific smile plastering his face. "I tell you what I am sure of," he interjected. "This is prella good eating, friends. Enjoy." He watched expectantly, as his guests eyed the strange delicacy with expressions ranging from curiosity to apprehension. "Eat! Eat!"

Qui Gon took an experimental bite and found that the texture and flavor were passable. A Jedi was not too particular about his vittles – that was one good way to starve, especially on a mission such as this. Satine chewed on her first mouthful thoughtfully, smiling at Tip's dramatic noises of pleasure. Beside Qui Gon, Obi Wan cautiously slid a single egg off its blackened skewer and ate it with an expression of polite interest.

""Ahhhhh!" Tip sighed. "The waves blessed us. That is a delicacy to be had only maybe once every few years."

"We are honored to share it," Qui Gon said.

"And honored to have your company in our exile," Satine added, graciously.

Tips' chest puffed out with pride. "You – Ke Wan. Why so thinking at this time of morning? Your breakfast you have not even touched."

The young Jedi looked up at the Nautolan with grave eyes. "Tip," he began slowly, "I have seen your past."

The boy screwed up his face quizzically. "How so? We only met together some days ago. My past is a long time gone before that."

"No," Qui Gon reassured him. "Not in the way you think. Jedi sometimes see things. The possible future, or what has already been. He has seen a vision of your ancestors, a part of your clan's history."

"Tell me, Ke Wan," Tip pleaded. "I am all ears, as you humans say it." He raised his hands to the sides of his head, cupping the fingers to create large, rounded ears. "Yes?"

"No, Tip," Obi Wan corrected him dryly. "_You_ are all mouth."

When the ensuing laughter had died down, he continued. "Your people are not from this world originally, Tip. They hail from a place called Glee Anselm. The people there are star-faring, like us." He paused to let this sink in. "Some of them came traveling this way a long time ago – generations, I think- and were attacked. Possibly by pirates. A gravity mine pulled their ship out of hyperspace. Out of the stars," he amended, seeing a look of blank incomprehension flit over his audience's face. "Only a few survived the carnage – most were very young, too young to remember life on Glee Anslem. They survived, perhaps in an escape pod. They would have floated there for a long time and died. Even if they dropped into your atmosphere, they likely would never have found land. There isn't much of it on this world."

"But they didn't die," Tip asserted. "Or I would not be here, Ke Wan."

"No," the Padawan agreed. "They didn't. A Jedi in the sector – A Jedi assigned to this part of space as the local peacekeeper," he glanced at Qui Gon for confirmation, and received a brief nod. "A Jedi named Yervei Adah, found them. It is possible he felt a disturbance in the Force and came to investigate. But I am certain he saved the Nautolans. He rescued them and brought them to your home island. And…they have been there ever since."

"But you look sad, Ke Wan. Why is that not a good thing? We know that Ke Adah rescued us from the stars and brought us to our home." Tip cocked his head to one side, bemused.

"He should have returned them to their homeworld," Obi Wan said. "He deliberately chose to strand them here. To keep them separate from their people – from any people."

"But Ke Adah is our wise guide," Tip argued, shaking his head. "Are you saying that he is bad in his doing? He had always helped us and given us counsel, for many generations. And when he is silver-headed, he has stayed on our island with us. This is even better for our people."

Qui Gon sighed. "That is not a Jedi's role, Tip. He has made of your people a utopian experiment of his own. He has told you and taught you what he wishes, and he has taken care that you know little of the galaxy beyond the boundaries of this world."

"But that is a sad place!" Tip objected. "Ke Muma said so. She told us that Ke-Lady-Tine's brothers are all killing one another, and that nobody in the stars may ever make _trothe ta pellia._"

Qui Gon directed a curious look at Satine, who flushed a deep crimson but said nothing.

"You have a right to belong to your own people," Obi Wan resumed. "You have a right to know more of life than this island. Even the sad parts are worth knowing. You wish for that, Tip. You have said so yourself, in many ways."

The young Nautolan sank his face into his hands. "You are making me _prella_ confused, Jedi," he moaned. "I don't know what to think. How do I know this seeing of yours is true, Ke Wan? You dreamed it, like a child's nightmare, I think. That is no truth-story. Dreaming is for fools and women!" he shouted, leaping to his feet in a rage. "You are nothing but a crybaby fool who dreams bad things because he is sick and crippled!" Tip threw his empty skewer at Obi Wan's head.

The young Jedi snatched the projectile out of the air with lightning reflexes. 'I do not intend to cause you pain or offense," he said steadily.

"You call my life a lie, you fever-head crazy Jedi! How do you think I feel, not offended? You cannot prove your lie-talking brat-child words to me!" Tip's opal eyes leaked large tears of distress.

Obi Wan took a deep breath. It was too late to reverse the effect of his words, too late to hold his tongue. "I will show you," he offered quietly. "I will take you up in the shuttle, and show you the remains of their starship."

Satine gasped. The debris field surrounding the planet – besides rocks, there had been a great deal of synthetic plastoids and metal. How had Obi Wan known? He had never seen the asteroid belt. She stared at him, startled. He looked at her, too, as though sensing the thought, and smiled thinly. She shivered, aware again of the differences that made him Jedi, made him _other._ Of the weird power that lurked beneath the deceptively mild surface of his reserve.

Tips' chest was heaving. "Okay," he agreed, angrily. "You show me, liar! We go now."

* * *

><p><em>Show me the stars, the moon in the sky. Tell me you love me; if you don't, just lie. – popular holocast song from the Core.<em>

Obi Wan piloted the shuttle up through Merrid Altus' atmosphere, speaking not a word. Behind him, Tip Haaleh stood with wide eyes, mouth hanging open in wonder as he ascended past the blue skies and into the dark of space, where stars glittered in their ageless tapestry. Two moons were visible on this side of the planet, and the thin asteroid halo of rocks and debris spread below them in a graceful curve.

"We're low on fuel, master," the Padawan said, eyeing the gauge warily. "How far do we need to jump from this system?" He began making calculations on the nav computer, keeping one hand on the yoke as they left the last thin haze of the upper atmosphere behind.

"That is the next difficulty we must overcome," Qui Gon replied serenely. "We barely had enough fuel to leave the system when we arrived. I had to find help as quickly as possible; there was little time to plan an exit strategy."

Obi Wan nodded glumly. That had been his fault.

"Not your fault," the Jedi master corrected him, sensing the thought. "I don't recall you being part of the decision."

They looped along the equator, rising into the debris field cautiously, adjusting speed to match its slow orbital procession. Once caught up in the stately motion of the circling rocks, Obi Wan cut the main thrusters and allowed the ship to drift, using only repulsors to push off the occasional piece of lazily tumbling mineral or scrap.

Tip groaned as a metallic panel scarred by blaster fire drifted past the port side. "That was a star ship piece, yes?"

"It was," Qui Gon answered, "An older one, too – tritanium hull shielding has been out of vogue for many decades. You can see the torpedo damage along the outer side."

"But what are all those regular shapes?" Satine wondered aloud. She had noticed them on the journey in. Now, at leisure to examine them at close quarters, they once again captivated her. "Obi, get closer to that one." She pointed to a tumbling box visible in the corner of their viewport.

Edging around the swirling junk, the young Jedi threaded their shuttle closer to the box. Soon it was somersaulting its way ahead of them. Markings were still visible on one side. He tilted his head to read the inscription, spelled out in the Basic aurebesh script. "Fuel cells," he breathed. "Master!"

Qui Gon's attention was arrested by the discovery as well. "Jettisoned by the Nautolan cruiser. Obi Wan. Seal off the cockpit and open the boarding ramp," he instructed. "That should just fit inside our hold."

The maneuver was touchy, but they managed it. Obi Wan popped the depressurized cargo hold open and gently swiveled their craft so that their stern faced the floating cargo box. Qui Gon closed his eyes and held out his hands. Using the Force, he gently pulled the box of fuel cells into the hold. It rattled a little as it scraped the edge of the ramp, and then fell to the floor with a thump as the chamber sealed, repressurized and restored gravity.

"I wonder what else is out here? Perhaps there is other equipment to salvage. Things to help the Nautolans – communications circuits or repulsor sleds." Satine peered at the vast, unexplored wreckage with renewed interest. If the Nautolans could save some part of their heritage from this solemn ruins, then surely Mandalore…?

Obi Wan dropped the small shuttle away from the asteroid belt. "Do you believe me now, Tip? Your people left behind abundant proof."

The young Nautolan boy trembled where he stood. "I am_ prella_ sorry I accused you, Ke Wan. You are a true-seeing dreamer. The_ liar_ is Ke Adah."

The two Jedi exchanged a grave look. If word of this exploit ever reached Yervei Adah's ears, as it must inevitably, the fierce old man would be displeased – very, very displeased.


	13. Chapter 13

**On Distant Shores _(XIII)_**

_A true warrior is pleased when he fights against impossible odds; for only then can he show his worth. – Mandalorian saying_

When the shuttle swooped down over turquoise seas and approached the tiny island of refuge, lying at the very tip of the curving archipelago, there was a second Nautolan boat drawn up on the sand beside Tip's fishing canoe. ObiWan set the ship down on high ground and lowered the ramps. No sooner had they touched ground than the fantastically adorned head of Po Tikkoro thrust itself through the opening. The Nautolan clambered breathlessly into the hold, squeezing himself between the huge fuel cell container and the bulkhead.

"Ke Gon!" he shouted. "Ke Gon! I am _prella_ glad to find you. The Kumaji need your help. I am sent by Kor, and the council. Please come back. We will perish without you! I send word form Kor: he renounces his decision and begs you to give aid."

"What has happened?" Qui Gon inquired. The Nautolan was steeped in distress; his churning emotions churned the Force into a veritable storm.

"The carrpi," Po Tikkoro gasped, collapsing into the copilot's seat. "I have rowed all this way. My breath is burned out. A moment, friends."

He sat, chest heaving, his headtails writhing in agitation. "The carrpi have swarmed onto the beaches – all the way to our village. There are so many, so big.."

Tip clutched his head. "It is like I told you! They are breeding! We shall all perish. Ke-Po, Ke-Po, is my Muma all right?"

The older Nautolan scowled at him. "Do not whine like a babe-child, Tip. Ke Muma is well still. But not everyone. Many were injured. My people: we have built a wall, Ke Gon. But many of the carrpi, they broke over it last night. There is great hurt and fear. They have destroyed parts of the village, and only with fire and their own death did our hunters drive them away. And now more have come."

"What of Master Adah?" Obi Wan growled. "Has he not offered you any help? I thought he was your wise councilor and guide."

Po shook his head and clutched at the edge of the console as though to steady his nerves. "Ke Adah has spoken to Kor and the leaders. He has said that this is the way of nature…that the balance of this world now favors the carrpi and we must accept this. He says that the Kumaji are supposed to live in harmony, to accept this without complaint, that we must do nothing! He has gone mad, Ke Wan. He will not help us. There is no one to give us help!"

"That is not true," Obi Wan told him, quietly. His eyes met Qui Gon's. "We will come, and help your people survive." He lifted the shuttle off the sands again, and swung it around in a tight loop, back toward the Nautolans' home.

"There is more," Po Tikkoro groaned. "Ke Adah does not know I was sent. He thinks you are far gone from this world. If he sees you, he will be very angry."

"He is a liar!" Tip Haaleh fumed. "His anger is nothing to us! I hope the carrpi eat him and his lies!"

* * *

><p>The shuttle's engines disturbed the carrpi swarmimg over the Nautolan's beach. Their mottled bodies shuddered as the repulsors thrummed overhead. The rippling pressure waves set the creatures into clamor, their claws churning at the frothy waters, their hard shells rattling down the beach all the way to a barricade of slanting pikes erected around the village's perimeter. Obi Wan eased the clumsy shuttle over this crude defense and dropped it with a soft thud onto the trampled sands of the square, where Kor and a delegation of the clan's elders awaited their arrival.<p>

The old, speckled chieftain greeted them at the foot of the boarding ramp, his hands pressed together over his heart. "Ke Gon," he boomed out for all to hear. "I was in error to send you away at the behest of Ke Adah. The Kumaji humble themselves before you." The ancient Nautoklan went down on one knee, and the others followed suit.

"No, no," the Jedi called out. "Stand, friends. We are here without anger in our hearts, The past no longer exists. Tell us how we may help."

The little girl whom Obi Wan had rescued from the carrpi slipped through the legs of an inobservant relative and dashed forward to throw her spindly frame into the young Jedi's arms. She clung to him happily, one fist balled around hs learner's braid. He blinked, bemused, but stood holding her while the clan's warriors gathered round their small company, talking and gesticulating all at once.

"Wait! You chatter-birds!" Po Tikkoro bellowed. "Let Kor speak."

The chieftain swung a strong arm round to encompass the village and the newly constructed wall, its spikes carved of hard anabu trunks. "All this has done nothing. Five are dead, and many wounded. Our men – half now cannot fight. The carrpi destroyed all our nets. We cannot go to the water for fish. And at nightfall they will come again. You Jedi – we think your warrior skills surpass ours. Help us."

Qui Gon turned a full circle, expression grim. "The carrpi are a formidable foe," he said at last. "And Obi Wan and I are not without limits. We will defend your home tonight, but there is great danger. You should move your mothers and children, your old and wounded, to the heights. There they will be much safer than here with us."

"You tell them to abandon their homes!" one of the council members protested. "You think our village will be destroyed. There will be no life to come back to. And what of the eggs? When these hatch, and grow, there will be nothing but carrpi on this whole world, and no home for us at all."

"One problem at a time, " Kor advised his kinsmen. "Ke Gon speaks wisdom."

"I do not wish to leave my home!" Tip hollered. "I will stay and fight the carrpi!"

"Quiet, fool-child," Po Tikkoro admonished him. "You should go with those who flee. You are not old enough to die yet."

The villagers, gathered in mournful silence about the shuttle's scarred hull, muttered and groaned. An old woman in the back of the crowd wailed and began sobbing.

Satine stepped forward to find and comfort the afflicted Nautolan elder. "Take courage!" she commanded. "We will walk to the top of the island together. All will be well if you do not lose heart." One by one, the hesitant clan members, and many of its children, drew toward the Duchess, accepting her as their natural leader. The girl clinging to the younger Jedi dropped from her perch and scampered to this new source of security, seizing one of the Mandalorian woman's hands in a fierce grip. Satine smiled and raised her free arm to her new people. "Come, " she cried out. "Follow me. We will need help carrying the wounded." A number of the younger males sprang to join her as well, hurrying into Muma's long house to fetch the injured and the sick.

Within minutes, the panicking crowd had been reduced to order and was calmly beginning their slow march up the hill under Satine's watchful direction.

Qui Gon observed their halting progress, his eyes full of respect. "She is a remarkable woman," he said. "There may yet be hope for Mandalore."

Obi Wan gazed into the shadows of the tress as the last of the evacuees disappeared into the forested slopes. "There is more than hope, master."

* * *

><p>Night fell, a blindfold across the eyes of the sun, a veil over the violence to come. A few brave stars peeked out between ragged wisps of cloud, morbidly curious, waiting for the horror to begin. A cold wind rose over the water, teasing. Its restless fingers scoured over the island's surface, throwing up sand and grit and spattering salt spray against the rough-hewn pike-walls.<p>

Obi Wan waited by the front gates, wrapped in the Force. It too whispered of horror to come; but unlike the skies and the seas, it did not seethe and cry in dreadful anticipation. It moved within its own stillness, resounded in its own silence, within his heart, within the crystal in his saber's hidden heart, within Qui Gon where he stood stationed atop the village's highest roof, surveying the shoreline and jungle through macrobinoculars, looking for the first line of attack from the carrpi. It echoed in the jungle, in the sea, in the carrpi themselves. It thrummed in the clan's stoutest hunters, standing at Obi Wan's back, their fear thrilling harsh against its Light, but their wills rooted, strong, unbending. They were prepared to defend their homes, and their lives.

Obi Wan had no magnifying device to aid in his vigil. But there was no need for such a thing; the carrpi's primitive minds left a distinctive crude tremor in the currents of the Light, like an artist painting an angry canvas in lurid colors. When the first line of carrpi began their mad ascent up the beach, their onslaught was like a flare of crimson splashed over the smearing pattern. The young Jedi felt it twist in his belly, shudder down his aching spine. He breathed out hard, separating self and feeling, and gripped his saber hilt.

The Nautolans behind him raised their spears and crouched low, their fear escalating to a shrill breaking point. "Stay and defend the wall," Obi Wan barked, springing forward alongside Qui Gon as he ran to meet the oncoming tsunami of giant crustaceans.

The wave broke upon them with stunning power. The leaders were nightmarish – bantha sized creatures, waving deadly claws. The Jedi halted in their path, sabers burning bright defiance. Obi Wan raised his left hand, reached into the bottomless well of the Force, and lifted the first of them in the air, flipping it upside down. Its carapace cracked sharp and loud as it tumbled onto its back, legs pedaling in a wild fury. Qui Gon leapt atop its belly and plunged his saber into the space between abdomen and head, jumping clear as the next carrpi snatched at him. Obi Wan seized this monster, too, and sent it crashing onto its back, the impact thudding in his veins. The Force rose within him, bound him to the flailing bodies of his foes. He threw and pushed, twisting and pummeling their massive forms, flipping them onto their backs one after another, until his vision swam dark with the effort and his breath came hard with each successive explosion of power. Qui Gon rolled, pivoted, leapt and spun, jumping from beast to beast as they were assaulted, upended, pinned and sent skidding. He slashed with terrible strength through their armor, burning hot lines across their bodies, impaling and decapitating. Ozone and seared flesh mingled in the air, choked them.

The wave swelled around them then, surrounding the Jedi. A rogue carrpi barreled down upon Obi Wan from the side, even as he smashed one of its brethren flat upon its back. He dropped, rolling backward over one shoulder, tracing a blazing line along its underbelly with his saber. Its corpse hit the earth heavily, ploughing through sand and scattered rock. He turned, tossed a smaller carrpi onto its back and skewered it before it could struggle upright. And then a true monstrosity grabbed him from behind, serrated claw clamping fast about his middle, driving hard into his injured spine.

Outrage and pain bleared together; gasping, he cut at the clawed arm, hacking through it in a single stroke. He dropped awkwardly to the sands, the iron jaws still tight about his body. Another beast loomed over him and he Force-pushed it away, crying out as Light poured through him, through his hands, through his breath, through the throbbing bruises gouged into his back. Qui Gon appeared atop the thing's frantically rocking body and plunged his green blade into its soft spot, then landed beside his Padawan. He seized the severed carrpi claw and pried it open. Obi Wan rolled clear.

Staggering upright, teeth gritted and sweat streaming in his eyes, Obi Wan pressed his back against Qui Gon's. Their motion became one thing; the maddened carrpi threw themselves forward, and burned, shattered, fell smouldering and severed. Distantly, like the call of shorebirds, the Nautolans' battle cries echoed amid the tempest. A few of the invaders must have made it as far as the wall, despite the Jedi.

Obi Wan felt their cries well up in his own chest. With a feral snarl, he somersaulted, swung to carve a smaller foe cleanly in two, and then swept around to cleave through another. Its legs sheared off and scattered in every direction. One bounced off Qui Gon's broad back.

"Easy, Padawan!" the Jedi master grunted, a tight spark of amusement leaping between them. Qui Gon impaled another monster with his own blade.

And then the battle changed; the onrushing waves of carrpi flooded up the beach and stopped to gnaw upon the corpses of their own fellows, ripping and shredding the splintered shells into ribbons and tatters with their merciless claws. They glutted themselves on fresh food ready to hand, and abandoned their charge up the slope.

The Jedi wasted no time. While the monsters were distracted, they dashed for cover behind the jutting defensive barricade, helping the Nautolans haul the makeshift gates closed behind them. Obi Wan slid down against the pike wall, white faced, and laid his saber across his knees.

Two carrpi lay to one side, within the village perimeter. The Nautolan guards stood proudly on watch, spears high and ready. "Are there more coming?' one of them asked.

"Be alert," Qui Gon advised him. "But we may have won the battle…for now." So saying, he joined his apprentice near the gate, kneeling to meditate and replenish his strength while the scuttling hard-shells outside picked clean the skeletons of their brothers, and the night wore on to a restless, red dawn.


	14. Chapter 14

**On Distant Shores (XIV)**

_Peace? Even those who say they love peace above all else have a limit. There is not a being alive in this galaxy who will not fight to the death for something. – Pre Vizsla, on the hypocrisy of pacifism._

What little meat remained on the empty frames of the dead carrpi had been picked clean and roasted as food for the villagers, who could not fish. The smaller bits of torn flesh and broken shell had been set to burn, and the larger sections of carapace carved into rudimentary shields or protective panels for the defensive wall. Obi Wan directed the band of Nautolan warriors in the hard work, supervising the construction of new defenses and the disposal of the battle's reeking detritus. Bitter smoke and the scent of burning seafood filled the morning air when the solemn party rested from labors started before dawn. None of them had slept, and yet none wished to yet; the hyper-alertness of war still held them all in its nerve-racking grip.

Qui Gon found his Padawan at the shoreline, where thousands of carrpi eggs littered the beach, gleaming like a legendary draigon's hoard of jewels.

"We should burn these, I suppose," the young Jedi said, without much enthusiasm. He stared at the soft round ovals in mild revulsion. "But, master, I can't quite…"

"I know." Qui Gon handed him a giant kelp-bladder drinking skin. "That is not the Jedi way. To massacre one species in order to save another: does it seem wrong to you?"

Obi Wan drained the skin and weighed it in his hand thoughtfully. "Perhaps. Though common antibiotics do the same, really. It depends on your perspective."

"We have no choice if we intend to save these Nautolans," Qui Gon reminded him. "And even then, I doubt we can repeat a battle like that of last night many times. We need a new strategy."

The Padawan turned the drinking bladder over in his hands. "Do the Nautolans have many of these?' he asked.

The older man's eyebrows rose. "Undoubtedly. And there is kelp drying in the work-yards behind the houses. Why?"

The young Jedi's face hardened, and a fierce, cunning light shone in his eyes. "Because there is full cargo crate of themane fuel in our ship's hold."

Qui Gon's face registered grudging respect and a grim approval of the plan. "You never cease to amaze me. But you had better gather your men and get a move on. I would advise being finished with the project before the Duchess returns to the village for supplies. I do no think she would approve."

"I'm sure she won't," Obi Wan grinned.

"In fact," Qui Gon continued after a pause, "You have inspired me. I think I know of a way to free the whaladons from the polar regions."

"The whaladons, master? How?"

The tall Jedi smiled and hooked two thumbs through his belt. "It is a simple matter of proportion," he said smugly. "I shall apply your principle on a larger scale."

His apprentice now shook his head in amused admiration. "The Duchess will _certainly_ not approve of that," he observed.

"Then I shall go now, before there is time to submit an objection," Qui Gon answered lightly. "Po Tikkoro! Thana! I need your help!" He strode away to the village's center, summoning his trusted crew of Nautolans to his side.

* * *

><p>Satine returned to the village in the late afternoon. She hurried down the narrow footpath, driven by a strange urgency. Runners had brought her camp news of the night's victory; had reported that there had been no new injuries of deaths, thanks to the valor of the Jedi; had described in gruesome detail the destruction of the ravenous invaders and the fabulous skill of the warriors who had slain them. And yet these words only spurred her impatience to greater heights. She must see for herself that the village stood, that its occupants were safe, that the fires which stained the clear sky with reeking dark smoke heralded nothing sinister. She must see for herself that…<p>

He was there, alive and well, in the center of the square. Relief flooded her with warmth and she slowed her pace. The handful of Nautolan youths caught up to her, overtook her now faltering steps.

"Gather what medical supplies you can from the long house," she instructed them. "And we will need baskets to carry food up to the camp again."

They scattered to obey her orders and to eagerly question their elders about the battle – the first act of warfare this community had ever endured, ever seen or remembered. She watched, mesmerized, as the men who had survived the battle last night solemnly confirmed the news, and retold the story in their own words. She did not miss the straightness of their backs, their proud bearing, that calm which marked a new-blooded warrior. Her own people had rituals and observances of these vile rites; her men, her fathers and grandfathers, had told their sons of just such feats, with the same grave pride, the same shimmering, impalpable…pleasure.

This was the Jedi's doing. These Nautolans had been peace-loving, peaceful, children of peace. And now they were dyed in the stain of war. Pierced with its venomous, seductive sting. Trapped and lured and transformed. The scales fell off her eyes and she saw Yervei Adah's meaning: balance and peace had here been destroyed, by these two hubristic men who carried the lightsaber. They called themselves peacekeepers but they brought only sorrow and pain and the invisible lingering corruption of spirit. They were destroyers of innocence.

Obi Wan was looking at her now, blue eyes narrowed for a confrontation. Let him see her thoughts! What did she care? Let him feel her outrage like a slap across his arrogant, comely face. He deserved it.

One of his eyebrows lifted, mocking her bold sentiment, and he approached until they stood toe to toe. He was not very, very much taller than she was; and yet his warm shadow seemed to veil and outshine sun, sky and Nautolan villagers alike. The universe coiled inward until they stood cocooned in its heart, resentment like hot fire licking the edges of the unexpressed, setting it to a slow smouldering burn.

"You have taught these people to enjoy killing," she hissed. His tunic was damp with sweat and grime. It clung to his skin, here…and there…

"We have taught these people to defend themselves. Their families. Their children," he countered. "…your _ladyship._"

The word seared through her, stealing breath, twisting her belly into a hard knot of rage. "Killing! Violence! Bloodshed! Is that your solution to every difficulty?"

"Not _every_ difficulty," he answered, leaning closer.

They struggled, balanced over the abyss. She broke away first, wrenching her eyes from his and glancing down. The lightsaber's hilt glinted silver, cold. It rested against his thigh, against cream cloth stained with ugly dark gore. She tore her gaze upward again, past his searching face, over his shoulder. There she found an assembly line of sorts, arranged with military efficiency along one side of the square. Nautolan men were loading drinking skins with liquid themane from the cargo box salvaged from the asteroid field. Others bound the bladders shut with primitive stoppers, tarring the seals. Yet others cautiously stacked the projectiles in hammocks erected near strategic points around the perimeter.

"Explain yourself!" she gasped, raising her chin and once more meeting his unyielding gaze. "What are you doing ?"

"Shoring up our defenses."

Her hands went to her hips, balling into fists. She watched the Nautolans manufacture the deadly fire bombs. "Those are not defensive measures," she scoffed. "Those are weapons. And one of them is bound to ignite by accident. How can you be so cavalier with these people's lives?"

He stared down at her, disbelieving. "I will launch them all myself," he said flatly. "Nobody will be endangered."

She stamped her foot. "_You_ will!"

It was a mistake, a perilous slip, bringing them far too close to the waiting chasm. With those words she had nearly uttered the unsaid, unleashing it upon them here, now – when there were other foes to combat, other tasks to be completed. She reeled backward, appalled by her own lack of control, her ungainly slip of the tongue. If he replied, if his gaze so much as softened, all would be lost.

But he didn't notice. Damnable Jedi, he had no self to think of. She might as well have said the ocean was dry. He merely shrugged and turned his back, striding over to the assembly line and the busily laboring Nautolans.

"Where is Master Jinn?" she demanded of his retreating back.

A polite pause, and a half-turn. "He has gone to fetch more fuel from the asteroid belt. We have a chance at freeing the whaladons. It's the only way to insure that this siege will ever end, that it will not be repeated in perpetuity."

"He cannot melt an entire planet's ice cap," she stammered, at a loss.

Obi Wan came back, a few paces toward her, stopping at arm's length, a compromise between cold distance and dangerous proximity. "He doesn't need to, if he can blow a passage through the worst of the ice. The whaladons are wise; they will find a way out of their predicament."

She shuddered, all too aware of the double meaning. His voice was gentle, much softer than his eyes and the hard line of his mouth. His hand rested lightly on the saber's pommel. Another thought surfaced. "Master Adah will be infuriated with you," she told him.

The softness fled. "Master Adah has yet to truly make my acquaintance."

Satine took a step backward, wary of his mood. She picked up her basket and wheeled about, leaving him to his wicked ways.

* * *

><p>Qui Gon dove down through the atmosphere again, another box of salvaged fuel safely stowed in the cargo hold. His chosen companions, Po Tikkoro and his cousin Thana, sat beside him in the cockpit, thrumming with excitement and tension.<p>

"There are the ice lands, Ke Gon." Po Tikkoro pointed out the viewport.

"I see them. Now – look at the holomap. Where is the best place to blast a hole in the ice? We must leave the whaladons a clear passage."

The Nautolans consulted the flickering image, pointing to its transparent contours and arguing over their import. "We see the places, Ke Gon. One is very close to here."

Qui Gon smiled. "The map is on a small scale, Po," he reminded the eager Nautolan. "Close may not be what you think it is."

"Oh." Thana laughed at his cousin's mistake and received an affectionate punch in return. Qui Gon chuckled. It was like taking a group of Jedi younglings on their first navigation exercise. The fun almost outweighed the gravity of their task.

At last they located the isthmus where creeping ice blocked off a canyon of cobalt water. Qui Gon brought the shuttle over the dip in a swooping motion. Whaladons surfaced and blew jets of steam only klicks away, as though they sensed the impending shift in the landscape. The Jedi dropped altitude and made a long run, opening the cargo bay hatch at just the right moment. The box of themane tumbled, roling in midair, until it impacted on the glacier wall below…

The Nautolans shouted in terror and delight as the volatile liquid exploded, sending up a vibrant fountain of fire and white shards, rending a terrible crack in the white ice. The dark water frothed and churned, and chunks of frozen glacier avalanched into the widening channel.

"How did you do that, Ke Gon?" Po Tikkoro yelled hoarsely. "You have made the ice burn!"

Qui Gon's mouth twitched.. "Not me. Just chemistry."

"Ke Mistri," the Nautolan repeated reverently. "Who is this?"

The Jedi master roared with laughter, and turned the shuttle back, ascending rapidly back into orbit. It was time to fetch another load of ammunition. By the time the planet had completed another rotation, he would have freed the captive whaladons, and turned the tide of the long-term war against the carrpi. The more immediate problem of the village's safety he could trust to Obi Wan. The battle was nearly over.

* * *

><p>Not long after nightfall, the first explosion could be heard, echoing up the forest hills from the direction of the beach. Many of those who sat huddled in the camp at the summit hurried to its ridge and stared at the surf's edge with wide, gleaming opal eyes. Satine watched with them, straining through the darkness to catch a glimpse of the chaos unfolding below. All that could be seen were sudden flares of light as the home-made bombs ignited in the midst of the oncoming carrpi.<p>

The noise was deafening; and the sky was soon bedecked with crawling ribbons of smoke and a foul stink, acrid and burning. The moons hung forlornly in the sky, waning in unison, seeming to turn their mouths down at the gruesome war being waged on this once tranquil paradise. Flocks of disturbed sea birds, driven from their roosting places by the furious thunder of the shore, streamed shrieking across the sky. Their ugly voices blared counterpoint to the drum of the explosions below.

The Duchess had just returned from this high vantage point to make another round among the camp's occupants, giving comfort and aid where possible, when the tall thin figure of Yervei Adah blocked her path. Like a ghostly apparition, he seemed to appear out of the night's darkness, out of thin air. The old Jedi glared down at her from beneath the brim of his ragged conical hat. He leaned on his staff like an old man, but even she – bereft of Jedi powers as she was – could sense that the appearance of frailty was a deception.

"What are these people doing here?" he thundered. "What are you doing here? I thought I told you to leave and never return."

The Duchess faced him squarely, while the Nautolans to either side murmured and parted like reeds in the wind, visibly bowed by the old Jedi's wrathful presence. "We have returned to render aid to these people, whom you have abandoned in their hour of need."

Adah swept his silver head side to side, a deep scowl carving his harsh features deeper. "Where are the other Jedi?"

"At the Kumaji village."

Adah's hand tightened about the haft of his stick, making his knuckles whiten. "They have pushed their audacity beyond the bounds of reason," he growled. "These people are under my protection, not theirs. How dare they interfere? They have found a new meaning for arrogance."

Tip Haaleh thrust his way through the terrified crowd of silent villagers. "No!" he shouted at the towering figure. "No, Ke Adah! You are the arrogant one! You are a liar and a tyrant! You have kept us in ignorance like pet chatter-birds! We are a free people, the Kumaji! And if you will not help us to fight these carrpi, then you are no guide, but our _enemy!"_ The furious youth launched himself, trembling, at Adah, but his gangly body seemed to hit a wall in midair. He crumpled to the ground, gasping.

Adah extended a hand. "Hear me, Kumaji!" he roared. "The Jedi follow a path of destruction and imbalance. I have taught you acceptance and balance. This world now favors the carrpi. It is their time. It is madness to defy the order of the universe. If you stand with the Jedi in opposing your destiny, then all my teachings have been in vain. You become creatures given over to the darkness of self, like the Jedi. Your arrogance is like unto theirs!"

Tip gasped and writhed, hands working at his throat as he feebly strove to draw in a breath.

A child whimpered. "Ke Sati! Stop him! Stop him!"

Satine dropped to her knees beside Tip. "Please!" she shouted at Adah. "Release him! How dare you call yourself a Jedi!"

Tip sucked in a desperate breath of relief. Blood seeped from a corner of his mouth. Satine stroked his forehead tenderly.

"You." Adah growled. "You, beauty of Mandalore, know nothing of the Jedi, if you think they practice compassion. Heed my words: before you are done with them, you will know great suffering at their hands."

She stood, suppressing the shiver of cold foresight. The Nautolans clustered about her, behind her, as though she could shield them from this maddened old wizard. Her heart clenched. "Yervei Adah," she said, voice ringing with a clear strength not entirely her own. "You are a useless coward who does nothing while the innocent suffer. How dare you judge those who surpass you in worth?"

Adah's hand reached beneath his robe, and he withdrew a gleaming silver cylinder. Satine's breath stopped. A lightsaber. Would he cut her down here on the spot? The ancient warrior's eyes were like two fiery brands.

"I am the protector of this world, I keep its balance. It is my presence here and my contemplation of the Force that maintains its harmony. Ocean, plant, animal, people: they are all under my care. And you – you and those reckless, impudent intruders you brought with you – try now to destroy the balance of my domain. I will stop this destruction now."

Adah was a madman. He must be stopped. "You are too late," she cried out, fear choking away her voice.

"No," he corrected her, hefting the saber's hilt in one hand. "I must amend my error. This whole line of events was put in motion by my misjudgment. That young whelp of a Jedi should have died when you first arrived. In my folly, I healed him. I allowed him to live, in violation of the Force's decree, and because of that he has wrought havoc on this world. It is my duty to undo my own mistake." He took three paces forward.

Satine threw herself in his path, trying to wrest the weapon from his grasp, but he struck her with his open palm, across the face, driving her onto the soft jungle floor. Then he strode past, heedless of the Nautolans' outraged and despairing cries, and descended the hill like a hurricane about to unleash itself upon a distant shore.


	15. Chapter 15

**On Distant Shores (XV)**

_There is nothing more tragic than the ruin of a noble mind. –Alderaanian proverb_

Qui Gon let Po Tikkoro have the honor of dropping the second themane bomb on the glaciers. The Nautolan pressed the cargo hold release with relish, immediately standing up to peer round at the destruction below. A mighty fountain of red flames and white ice shot sky-high. Pellets of ice and turbulence from the shockwave rattled the shuttle's underbelly.

Holding the ship steady, Qui Gon made another loop, for observation purposes. The last blast had started a chain reaction; cracks were widening in the ice, creating a fanning web of fissures. At one place, where the narrow ice isthmus separated the clear ocean from the imprisoning channel, heads of whaladons were visible pushing against the wall, conspirators in the prison break.

The Jedi smiled, feeling a glimmer of childlike wonder at the marvels of the universe and the Living Force. The enormous beasts were so intelligent…were they perhaps sentient beings like himself? The galaxy was a strange and unpredictable place. In his fifty-some-odd years he had never yet grown weary of its infinite variety or mystery. He wondered, in awe, whether these creatures were not in some sense the true keepers of balance here on Merrid Altus.

But this was not his to know. His was the task at hand: rescue.

"Look! Look!" Thana urged him to return his focus to the present moment. "If we destroy that cliff wall, the water will reach all the way from the arctic sea back to warm currents. A canal, Ke Gon. One more boom and the whaladons will swim free on the sea road, back to our home waters."

"Then we must find one more container of themane," Qui Gon decided. He edged the shuttle upward, climbing ever higher past the atmosphere. Below them, Merrid Altus rotated on its axis. The north polar region was in perpetual light this time of year, but the equator slowly turned, night to day and day to night in never-ending procession. It must be the small hours of the morning on the Nautolan's home island. Reaching through the Force, he sought out the village and its occupants, his apprentice. Closing his eyes, he saw explosions blossoming in the night and heard the faint echo of triumphant shouting, the crackling of flames. Obi Wan's presence burned clear, sun-bright, unclouded. At the very edge of awareness, where vision faded into conjecture, he thought he glimpsed a shadow running down a hillside, a snuffed light, leaving a trail of hollow emptiness. But the Force shifted and moved, obscuring the foresight, and he lost touch with it.

No matter. The future was ever in motion. He lifted the shuttle above the last thin wisps of atmosphere and into glorious starlit night, then plunged it longitudinally toward the asteroid belt. One more drop and their task would be complete.

* * *

><p>"One more!" Obi Wan shouted, his voice thick and rasping from the smoke.<p>

Two of his Nautolan men hefted a huge drinking bladder in their hands. Their mottled green backs gleamed with sweat. It had been a night of unremitting violence and hard work. The heat from the incessant themane explosions made the air ripple and sear their throats and lungs. With a concerted effort, the two Nautolans threw the heavy sack of liquid fuel into the air, a meter or two above their heads.

Grunting with the effort, hands thrust out before him, the young Jedi caught it in mid-air with the Force, sending it sailing far, far over the pike wall and into the last wave of rushing carrpi. It soared in a parabola over the creatures' barnacle encrusted backs and landed in their midst, splitting the air with another deafening bang. Fire and smoke welled up in a torrent, and ground trembled. There was an unearthly shriek, a clattering, the rainfall-sound of carapace fragments hitting the trees and the pike wall.

The Nautolans cheered and cheered. The scout on the roof behind them hollered something in his native tongue and jumped up and down, waving a defiant fist at the beach.

"They are running! They are retreating! Only the small ones are left!" he shouted to his companions. "We have done it! We are safe!" So ecstatic was his victory dance that he nearly slipped off the roof.

Obi Wan looked at their hammock of ammunition. Only a handful of the toxic, dangerous grenades remained. Had the carrpi outnumbered their weapons, or been any more tenacious, he would have had to fight the hard way. He sucked in a deep breath, trying to steady his racing heart, but the air was too thick with smoke. He doubled over coughing.

"Ke Wan!" the Nautolan closest to him warned.

Standing, wiping tears and sweat from his eyes with grimed fingers, he wheeled about. From the hillside, striding with the deadly purpose of a gundark on the prowl, came the cloaked figure of Yervei Adah. His presence was alight with anger – he appeared in the Force as a dark center wreathed in flickering sweet-sick fury.

Obi Wan's hand went to his saber hilt.

The ancient Jedi stopped a few meters away. He lifted a single hand and tossed the Nautolans to the sides as though they were a few dry leaves fluttering in the breeze. Obi Wan's throat closed, and he fought to suppress the surge of anger. There is no emotion; there is peace.

"You intolerable fool," Adah growled at him. "What have you done? You have taught my people to be savage murderers. You have slaughtered the rightful inhabitants of this world."

"The Nautolans also have a right to live," Obi Wan said, tensing for conflict. Adah loomed nearer, seeming to grow in power with every step he took. The Force churned with his wrath.

"Life and death are not yours to mete out," the old man proclaimed. "It is not yours to decide who shall survive: carrpi, whaladon, Nautolan. It is not yours to defy fate when your own time comes. I regret having cooperated in your rebellion against destiny. You should have died many days ago. In my weakness, I heeded the pleas of your friends. Now I must undo that terrible mistake." His lightsaber flashed into life, a green line humming in the dark, smoke-saturated air. Nautolans dashed forward to Obi Wan's aid.

"Stay back!" he warned them, his own weapon snapping out of its hilt, crystal blue blade sparking in the heavy smoke, setting the airborne ash alight. The Nautolans would only be harmed if they stood in Adah's way. "I will deal with him." He kept distance between himself and Adah, calling on the Force for strength. He was already exhausted by the long night's battle against the carrpi, by the dragging weariness and soreness from his healing injury.

"You will not cheat death this time," Adah declared, his eyes glittering insanely. "Balance _shall_ be restored to this planet."

Obi Wan circled away, keeping his blade angled in a defensive position. "I do not wish to fight you," he said. "Stop this, Master Adah. Lower your weapon. We are Jedi. This is _wrong."_

But in reply Adah only laughed – a short barking sound, full of contempt. "You know nothing of true balance. You are nothing but a pathetic brat raised in the Temple by fools and hypocrites. You serve their will, or your own. It matters little which; but worse yet, you call this folly compassion. Your existence is an affront to the Force – a stain on the order of the universe. I will right it myself!" He leapt to the attack, green blade sizzling through the thick air.

Obi Wan had no choice. He parried the strike with a strong upward cut and came round in an offensive. Adah blocked him and attacked again, with breathtaking speed. The young Jedi narrowly dodged the strike to his left side, and leapt onto a rooftop.

"Adah!" he shouted. "I will not fight you!"

"Yes, you will!" his maddened foe bellowed, leaping onto the roof beside him. "You will fight and you will perish!" He struck again, in a dazzling series of blows. Their blades locked and clashed together, and set the thatched roof into flame. Soon tongues of fire licked underfoot. Nautolans shouted and ran for water. At the edge of sloping battlefield, Adah Force-pushed his opponenet over the thin support beam.

Obi Wan flipped and landed on his feet and one hand, blade still held high, ready for an assault from above. Adah flung himself down, saber spinning in a frenzied pattern. Obi Wan rolled away again, springing to his feet a few paces distant.

"Stand and face me!" Adah roared.

"I will not fight you!" Panting, Obi Wan deactivated his weapon and sprang away, sprinting through the village and into the cover of the forested hill, leading Adah away from the vulnerable Nautolans, away from the path leading to Satine's camp, away from the slaughtered carrpi and the thundering surf. He threaded his way up the hill in the dark, among the jungle's trees. Adah let loose a yell of rage and pursued him.

* * *

><p>The shuttle's cockpit was filled with loud cheering. Po Tikkoro broke into a hearty song, clapping his hands in rhythm against the ship's bulkheads. Below them, streaming into the newly carved channel, the majestic whaladons began their long overdue migration southward. Their trailing jets of spray seemed to call out thanks, and their graceful bodies curved and rolled through the freezing arctic water in a slow and solemn dance of celebration. Even Qui Gon was stunned by the sight – it nearly brought tears to his eyes.<p>

"All is well!" Thana proclaimed, hugging his cousin and then shaking the Jedi master vigorously by both shoulders. "All is well!"

A flash of premonition sliced across Qui Gon's mind. All was not well.

"What is the matter?" Po Tikkoro yelled as the Jedi suddenly banked the ship at a hard angle, turning back toward home and slamming the thrusters to maximum. "What are you doing?"

"Something has happened," Qui Gon barked. "Obi Wan is in trouble. We are needed." He pushed the ship past its limits, feeling the rattle of its hull as the engines hurtled it over the oceans' surface at breakneck speed. It was no starfighter, this old piece of junk. He clenched his jaw, feeling panic start to claw deep in his gut. Things were not well at all. The Force surged with warning and with a strange twisting vibrancy. He felt the touch of the Dark side. What was happening?

"Is it the hard shells, Ke Gon? What are you dream-seeing? The village?" Po Tikkoro could not disguise his worry and dismay. His black eyes were wide like dark moons.

"No," Qui Gon murmured. And then he guessed, intuition supplying the meaning he had missed. "It is Yervei Adah. He has turned."

"Turned?" Thana repeated, grasping at the console's edge as Qui Gon dove downward a thousand meters, below the clouds, without slackening speed. "How, Ke Gon? What are you talking about?"

"He will kill Obi Wan and then destroy your village," the Jedi growled, holding the shuddering ship on its careening course.

"Oh…" Po Tikkoro moaned. "That is _prella_ bad, Ke Gon. Hurry fast, friend! Fast!"

* * *

><p>The tree branch smelled of lichen and damp wood. Early, pre-dawn mists settled among its low branches, a moving curtain of grey droplets. Obi Wan lay flat, belly pressed against the soft, slippery bark, as still as a colwar waiting for its prey. He veiled his presence in the Force, made himself small, light and ephemeral as the brown and green moths that clustered over the tree's dappled trunk. All Jedi learned to do this, as small children even, playing games of hide and seek that might last for hours. He remembered thinking it great fun all those years ago, though the teachers had instructed them soberly that they must develop this skill should they ever need to hide form another Force user, not for amusement but in deadly earnest.<p>

He had not thought then he would ever need to use the technique. Adah stood directly beneath him, white hair glimmering faintly in the pale stirrings of light over the horizon. "I know you are here!" he called into the small clearing. "Show yourself!"

But Obi Wan said nothing, floating on the surface of the Force, making not a ripple of disturbance. He barely breathed. He would not be drawn into Adah's fury. He would not fight another Jedi.

The old man turned a slow circle, his glinting dark eyes raking the grove for any sign of motion, his mind unfurled like a slinking predator, alert to catch the faintest trace of thought or emotion in the Force. Obi Wan was still, invisible, shrouded in Light.

"Show yourself, coward," Adah taunted him. His saber blade thrummed hot and loud, and he callously scarred the tree's trunk. "If you will not come down, I shall return to the Nautolans and slay the Mandalorian woman first."

Obi Wan launched himself out of the tree with a fierce cry, his stroke barely missing Adah's shoulder. He landed in a skittering crouch, leaves and soft mulch flying beneath his feet. Adah roared in anger and lunged for him, savagely. The duel blazed back into life, two lightsaber blades screaming and slashing in the forests' shadows. Trees were felled, brush and vines set alight, reduced to ash as the weapons spun and swept. Birds and small animals erupted from their hiding places and fled, crying in terror.

Yervei Adah pushed his advantage, showering down strikes upon the exhausted Padawan. Obi Wan retreated cautiously, defending himself in a flurry, unable to disengage. Adah was determined to kill him, and his hatred gave him great strength. They fought faster and faster, Adah's face drawn in to an awful scowl, Obi Wan panting for breath as his back began to tighten and stab with random pain. The exertion was too much…and he knew what came next.

He rolled backward from a downward strike and made to leap into the trees again, but Adah caught him in mid-jump, slamming him backward into an aioli trunk with a powerful Force push. Obi Wan felt his head hit the hard bark, slid down, ducked on instinct as the tree was severed a scant inch above his head. He reached into the tempestuous Force and threw the fallen tree at Adah, catching him in the midriff and sending him sprawling. He slipped, gracelessly, awkwardly, down an incline on the far side, his fall cushioned by deep brush at its base. He heard Adah following in great bounds, and he slithered away, ignoring the cold thrill of reawakened pain travelling down his spine. He could not win this fight – he was still too injured. He had to find another way.

"You cannot escape!" Adah called out to him, relentless. "I will find you and end this!"


	16. Chapter 16

**On Distant Shores (XVI)**

_Let any of us who has slain a fellow Jedi or who has sought to slay another Jedi, in anger or in vengeance, be utterly expelled from our ranks – from the Precepts of the Jedi Order_

Qui Gon dropped the shuttle outside the pike wall, and bounded down the ramps. His boots waded through the stinking remnants of carrpi, skirted craters blown in the soft beach, avoided the viscous puddles of themane soaking into wet sand. The Force splintered and eddied, a dizzying kaleidoscope of passion and terror and destruction. The Dark stained everything, lying over the village and this reeking battlefield just as the sun's first rays lay glittering on the seas.

"Master Jinn!" He was greeted at the gates by the Duchess, and a wide-eyed host of Nautolans. "You must go – quickly! They are in the jungle – the mountain."

He steadied her with one hand. Her face sported a purple bruise, an ugly mark spread over one high cheekbone and her delicate jaw. Her hair had come loose again, and cascaded over both shoulders, fretted with leaves and grit. "Which way?"

She pointed, while several of the older Nautolans shouted directions and exclaimed over the duel in loud voices. Children clung to their elders' legs, mothers stood and wept. Tip Haaleh pushed forward. "Up the aoli grove side," he said. "I saw them go, fast like hunting birds. Ke Wan and Ke Adah are fighting with their light-swords, Ke Gon! You must stop Ke Adah! He is going to kill Ke Wan and all of us! He is an evil liar!"

"That way leads to a cliff on the northern side," Kor rumbled. He stood tall above the others. "You must take your sky ship and go there, Ke Gon."

The Jedi was already dashing back to the ship when he heard his name again, and rapid footfalls. "Master Jinn! I am coming with you!"

She barely made it up the ramp before he had closed the hatch and was firing the thrusters. Heedless of her cries as the ship tilted and soared in a tight curve around the island's perimeter, Qui Gon hurtled toward the spot. It lay not far ahead – a sweeping cliff, falling in a single sheer drop to the storming tide below. Jagged remnants of the rock-face scattered at its feet; the pounding surf thrashed and spattered among them, the frothing mouth of a titanic monster. The trees ended a short distance from the cliff, leaving only an exposed bluff of short grass and sand overlooking this fearsome promontory.

And there, at the teetering edge of this miniature world, two figures battled, light clashing against light, in a mortal contest.

* * *

><p>At the edge of the aoli grove, Obi Wan stopped. Before him lay only a short windswept expanse of rock and grass, and beyond that a sharp drop off the island's northern edge. He could hear the pounding of surf on jagged rocks far below, the seething of the tide as it hurled itself against the island's unyielding shoulder. It was by no means ideal terrain for a fight: no cover, uneven footing, and a deadly fall on one side. He leaned against the last straggling tree, pulse drumming in his ears. Adah was not far behind, The rising sun cast long shadows slantwise across the flat plateau, grasping purple fingers stretching away to the cliff's edge. Like the far-reaching grasp of Adah's bottomless anger.<p>

He felt his tunic clinging damply to his back, sweat streaming down his neck and shoulders. He was shaking from head to foot. Not good. How long he could hope to hold off the maddened Jedi when he was so far from his normal self, he could not say. He closed his eyes and drew in a deep breath, finding his center. The Force was here, all around him, golden and serene, the invisible source of the light on the waves, of the sun, of the stars. He could fight as long as that light still shone within him. And when that ethereal warmth set and faded from his limbs, then he would fall. That was all. There is no fear, and no death. There is only the Force.

He wheeled about as a twig snapped above him. Adah dropped out of the branches, saber blazing in a swift, deadly attack. The old man's long beard flew behind him, a comet's tail. His hat he had long since discarded, and his robes were torn and singed from the battle. They hung in tatters about him like the wild rags of a legendary forest guardian. Obi Wan parried and blocked, and backed away, driven by his foe's storming rage onto the open field at the cliff's top. His feet slid over loose shale and stone, and he stumbled across the uneven earth, his whole mind absorbed in the battle- in the sheer and simple act of fending off Adah's limitless strength. His back throbbed and burned, and his limbs ached. They fought, and he retreated, until he could feel the gusting wind sweep up to caress his hair. He stood on the brink of the cliff. A pebble dislodged by his boot sailed over the precipice and was gone.

"You are weak," Adah scoffed. "Broken. You are not meant to be alive. Submit."

They clashed together, blades scraping a terrible discordant note across the morning's stillness. They broke apart, and exchanged blows in a thunderous storm, then locked together again. Adah reversed out of a bind and thrust his saber's pommel into the young Jedi's jaw, knocking him to the ground a meter from the precipice. He held out a hand, pinning his foe down. His boot came down on Obi Wan's sword arm, stamping hard. The Padawan's weapon rolled from his loosened fingers, and he writhed, helpless, as Adah stood over him, livid with untamed rage.

The ancient Jedi lowered his thrumming saber, still holding his left palm downwards, the Force crushing the young Jedi to the rocky earth, immobile. He dropped to one knee. Every line of his face was furrowed deep with age, beaten by sun and wind. His eyes were black embers set in the craggy mountain range of his visage. "You insolent, stupid man," he spat. "You wish to use the Force for destruction? You wish to use your gift to channel death and violence? I grant your wish."

The old man tapped two fingers against his prisoner's forehead – and set the world resounding with a devastating gong-note of pain. Obi Wan gasped in agony as the golden light of the Force seemed to implode, turn in upon him and flow backwards through his veins like liquid fire. His spine erupted into blazing fury, and every nerve screamed, as though still being devoured by tiny B'Omarri probes. He saw the blue sky wheel overhead, black at the edges, saw Adah raise his saber for one last blow, his face contorted with unspeakable cold satisfaction –

-and saw Qui Gon's green blade clash menacingly against Adah's upraised saber. The two weapons swung and flashed, faster than thought. Obi Wan twisted, reaching through for his own weapon, stretching out his hand through a fiery wall of pain to touch it with the Force…and pulled it into his grip. Adah sent Qui Gon flying backward, on a wave of Dark energy, and pivoted round snarling, ready to destroy his apprentice. Obi Wan blocked the strike, barely, still lying sprawled on his back. The heat of his own blade seared close to his cheek as he staved off death. Adah leaned in, pushing harder, bringing the two pulsing blades closer, closer…Obi Wan brought his feet up, tight against his chest with a sob of pain, and kicked Adah in the solar plexus, sending the crazed old warrior somersaulting over his head.

Silence. Obi Wan's saber dropped from his numb fingers. He rolled on his side, lost to the world.

Qui Gon's footsteps pounding past his head, stopping at the cliff's edge.

The roar of the surf, pounding and tearing at the rocks below.

A great gust of splintered shadow and light in the Force – a star imploding into nothingness.

Satine's hair, brushing against his cheek, Her breath warm on his skin. Hands pressed to his face, softly.

Clouds drifted. He drifted, on an ocean of pain. It ebbed, slowly. Slowly.

Qui Gon again. "Obi Wan." Strong hands pulled him into a sitting position. "Adah is gone. He plummeted over the cliff."

A breath. Two breaths.

"Are you all right?" Satine's voice. The pain ebbed away further. The sky wheeled overhead. Adah was gone. It was over.

"I didn't kill him." He needed her to know. "I didn't mean to." It came out a whimper. Shameful. He sat up straighter. A Jedi draws his strength from the Force.

"I know." She knew.

"Can you walk? The ship is just over there."

Qui Gon was like the Force, a source of strength, serenity. The pain ebbed. It would all ebb away in time. Like the tide. He found his feet, and they limped down the lonely slope together, in silence, under the gentle morning sun.

* * *

><p><em>Patience, younglings, patience. Time cures many ills and sets new beginnings in motion. Abide in the Force with an open heart, and have hope. – Jedi Master Chakora Seva<em>

Satine stood on the beach with Ke Muma and many of the others, gazing over the waves at the glittering trail of sun on the water. Sea birds hung motionless on the breeze, and shredded clouds festooned the sky's dome, festival banners for the great event. The fishermen of the tribe had spotted the first of the returning whaladons early that morning. The mighty beasts had migrated all the way to the equator, and their long-sought return was to be celebrated in the village with a joyous feast.

Po Tikkoro and Tip Haaleh had spent the last three weeks learning to fly the shuttle. They had taken on the role of ice-watchers, and would patrol the polar region every winter, keeping open the channels lest the whaladons become trapped again. Tip especially looked upon the task as a high honor, and seemed to have matured at least ten years since the day she had first met him.

Besides a large quantity of fuel, the Jedi had also retrieved communications equipment from the debris field around Merrid Altus. After several days' tinkering with the outdated circuits and transponders, they had punched a distress signal through to Glee Anselm and received a coded message in return. A Galactic Relief ship was scheduled to be sent here. It would bring the Nautolan colony on Merrid Altus supplies and news form their mother-world, as well as a fast Republic transport for the Jedi team.

Watching the women and children of the clan prepare the meal and the colorful decorations for the night's celebration, Satine realized with a pang that she would miss these people. The month they had spent here would forever be engraved upon her memory. The terror of the carrpi attacks, and the terror which had originally driven them to these shores; the madness of Yervei Adah and his horrible demise – crushed on the rocks of the seashore like a hardshell dropped by a bird; the trials and discomforts of life on the primitive, uncivilized island: none of these would sully the memory of the fiercely loyal and generous Nautolans, nor of the peace and calm which had settled on the island in the wake of Adah's death.

She had often before imagined what true peace would look like. What life could be for those who did not know the ways of war. But now a new dream had taken root in her heart. Again and again her thought strayed back to Mandalore. She had been gone too long. The insurgents would think by now that they had succeeded at least in driving her to permanent exile, if not in actually killing her. She had spent so many months, on planet and off, running and hiding and fighting. Four hundred days in the exclusive company of her people's hereditary enemies, the Jedi.

She no longer considered them anything but friends.

A cheer broke out among the children of the tribe. A few jumped up and down, whistling and laughing. Satine stretched onto her toes to see the source of their excitement. Just coming round the bend of the shoreline, where the rocks jutted out in a natural jetty, came the running figures of the two Jedi. They sped along the sand in a flat out race, the tide splashing at their feet as it surged over the beach. As they reached the great boulder which sat, lonely, in the center of the flat delta, they bounded over it on one flying leap, a mighty spring of impossible height. The Nautolans grinned as Qui Gon Jinn cleared it smoothly, landing in a crouch on the wet sand beyond. Behind him, Obi Wan vaulted to its top, pushing off his hands in a beautiful spiralling motion, and dropped to the beach in front of Qui Gon , a cocky grin of exhilaration lighting up his face. He took off at a renewed sprint, the tall Jedi at his heels, and dashed over the finish line a half-second ahead of his mentor, adding a few superfluous travelling backflips as an ending flourish.

Qui Gon bent over, hands on knees, and snorted. "I'm too old for this," he smiled, watching his Padawan saunter smugly back up the beach, surrounded by an adoring gaggle of small Nautolans.

"No, no," tip Haaleh assured him. "That was _prella_ good time. All the way round before the hour glass emptied twice. And the swimming part, good that was too – for humans. Not as good as me, but still okay. You and Ke Wan, both of you are men of the tribe now."

"Well, that's a fine consolation for being beaten by my own apprentice," the Jedi master remarked, accepting a drinking skin and draining it in one thirsty gulp. "I won't have to hang my head in shame."

Obi Wan appeared at his side, now adorned with the victor's wreath of fragrant _chirrpa_ blossoms. "That can still be arranged, master," he smirked.

"If you require a lesson in humility, Padawan. I would be happy to oblige you."

The young Jedi's expression softened, and he made a bow to his teacher. "I am well content," he replied, formally.

Qui Gon placed an affectionate hand on his shoulder. "Let us join the feast. I'm famished."

Satine walked behind them as they ascended the beach toward the village. Obi Wan strolled confidently along beside Qui Gon, no trace of pain or hesitance in his graceful stride. Three weeks of quiet rest and meditation, and careful, patient training, had restored him to full health. His gait was no longer faltering or slow. It spoke of wellness, of strength and fluid power. In fact, now that she was paying attention, she decided that his habitual movement bordered on being an arrogant swagger.

Charming, really.

* * *

><p>Three days later, the Galactic relief transport rose into the skies of Merrid Altus. The waving Nautolans below dwindled into specks and their island disappeared into the sea of clouds. It was time to journey onward. Qui Gon Jinn sat behind the pilot's console, gazing at the floating asteroid and debris field as they edged closer and closer to clear space beyond the planet's gravitational pull.<p>

"It is time, " the Duchess announced. "I have had enough exile. No more running and hiding."

Both Jedi turned to her, though with expectation, surprise, or alarm, she could not fathom. As ever, they were inscrutably calm.

"I am ready to return to Mandalore," she said.

"The insurgents are still well established," Qui Gon answered. "Unless they are uprooted, your exile will never end. Nor will the cycle of war on your world."

"Then I shall bring peace," she stated, firmly. "Or I shall perish there, in the striving."

The Jedi master inclined his head, acknowledging her determination, promising to fulfill his duty to protect her. He entered the coordinates into the nav computer, with a grave face.

Beside her, Obi Wan's fingers curled around her hand. "We will help you," he promised in turn. She looked up at him, meeting his eyes. _Or perish in the striving,_ they seemed to add. _My lady._

She held that gaze for a long time, unaware of passing time, or of Qui Gon, or the ship, or the stars in the heavens. They eased into hyperspace, beyond light, into a new beginning.

**Author's Note: **Our heroes, and the Duchess, will indeed return to Mandalore. But, alas, their exploits will not be in readable form until mid-December. Until then, I suppose, we must abide in patience and wish them well. The last part of this trilogy will be titled _Before the Throne._


End file.
